I wonder if the new copyright cops will get tanks and guns or will be a part of DHS so they can make warrantless house intrusions and take equipment before evidence is destroyed. It's all perfectly logical how they would NEED certain military style hardware and no-knock entry authority to do their job, right? After all, their JOB will absolutely require unannounced home intrusion, just like you'd expect against violent criminals, gang hideouts, and drug labs.
Hell, if these guys show up *without* SWAT style tactics, they might reasonably expect to get shot by homeowners objecting to people busting into their houses to steal their computers.
Knock Knock Who is it? Copyright cops. Let us in and we're going to take your stereo, all your CDs, all your computers, and all storage media in the house, both analog and digital. Trust us, we're from the government, and we're coming in whether or not you give us permission since if we wait until you get warrant confirmation, you might have erased all evidence. *door opens* Gunfire follows as homeowner defends property from intruders without proof of law enforcement status
The obvious solution is to give the cops a tank and disarm the homeowner...
Why do we see a delay from when new hardware hits the market and when open source drivers get released and incorporated? Slow driver releases mean that the hardware is approaching obsolescence before the drivers get widespread acceptance, and that seems to hurt VIA especially in the low-power cpu/mobo area where any delay means the replacement hardware is already on the way.
Is that stuff worse than the mercury found in CFLs? Does it escape as easily (ie if you drop it, does it contaminate the area)? Or is this just something that suppliers manufacturers need to worry about to limit worker exposure?
Conspiracy theorists will say that it's the CFL makers who pushed this while marketing thin glass tubes full of mercury vapor as a consumer-safe product... I can't say I've ever seen an LED that's been smashed but I've had a number of CFL bulbs break, which apparently turns the site into a toxic hazard zone.
Remember, Iraq had no WMD and no nuclear program. So basically that Canadian company just gave Iraq millions of dollars for something that did not exist. Right? That's what CNN told me, that there was no "smoking gun", and no nuclear program materials or other WMD materials were ever found.
So... Where did this stuff come from then? Did Pres Bush sneek it in last week?
Many shorelines require natural wave action and currents to remain healthy. It seems like this is yet another technological "solution" that might in the long run cause more problems. The potential issues with shoreline erosion (or whatever might happen when wave energy is dispersed prior to getting to the shore) won't happen as quickly and obviously as we have seen with wind farm bird kills (apparently those big slow moving windmills are pretty good at whacking birds), the effects could be as disastrous as some of the things we've done with the Florida Everglades and much of the gulf coast.
The point that completely escapes many environmentalists, is that you can't just discard one technology and replace it with another, and expect everything to come out all right. There are damn good reasons behind the scientific method, and they do not include stomping feet, claiming anyone with a different opinion is trying to kill the world, or jumping headlong into untested technologies that, because they aren't bad in the same way as other technologies, must be 100% good. That's an insane way to pursue large-scale technology change, but that's what Gore and his army of environmental extremists consistently propose. Anything that replaces oil must be ok, even if it results in us burning food or in this case, disrupting wave energy and water currents along a stretch of shoreline. What could possibly go wrong? Idiots.
Let's see some long-term studies in limited regional experiments before we dump too much money into this boondoggle. We already wasted far too much cutting down and burning rainforests to grow corn which we then turned around and burned... How about using tried and true scientific methods before we rush into something really harmful.
In the meantime, we already have plenty of reasonably safe and clean technologies that have been in use for decades. Every nuclear power mishap that has ever occurred caused a mere fraction of the casualties we've had in just the last decade of conventional power plant and oil refinery mishaps... How about we start using the technology that doesn't actually kill anyone on an annual basis?
I got an infrant readynas NV+, now sold as the netgear readynas. It's pricy (I got mine for around $550 without any drives) but it's dead simple to use and maintain. I popped in 4 500GB drives from their approved list, let it grind away formatting, and instantly had about 1.5ish TB of storage ready.
Features I like - the OS allows for plugins, however the included servers more than meet my needs. It came with various media servers and compatibility with every reasonably popular operating system. It's flexible and very configurable for both security and features. You can also upgrade the ram on the system mobo, which can add up to 10% or so of real-world performance for the cost of whatever it takes to pull that used sodimm from your spare parts bin.
Feature that is ok - I used "X-Raid", which is essentially raid 5 but with the ability to swap in drives of different sizes. The array automatically sizes itself to use 4x the capacity of the smallest drive, but if you upgrade one at a time with larger drives it will automatically resize to the larger capacity when all 4 drives are the new larger size. Downside - it's proprietary and not true raid5. On the gripping hand, I don't care. It works and automatically manages itself.
Feature I don't like - it's not very fast. Even over gigabit ethernet, it's no faster than a single USB drive. You can speed up writes by turning off journaling and trying different features, but it's still not very fast.
It's possible that netgear has increased the overall speed of the device since speculation in the user forum is that any changes to the unit's motherboard due to previous design obsolescence would invariably speed up the whole device in every way, but I have no direct knowledge about this. It seems that the unit is either cpu or drive controller limited, not limited by drive or network adaptor speed once you pop in a larger sodimm.
Bottom line - for me it was pricy peace of mind. It sits quietly in the corner of my office hooked up to my gigabit switch, and it's available 7/24 for backups. When I go on vacation, I can poke a hole in my router and get relatively secure web, ftp, nfs, etc. access to the unit. I can put my music or video library on it and stream to any computer on my LAN with the included media servers. Pricy, but useful and I haven't had to fiddle with it beyond the initial setup and minor tweaking of services the first week I owned it.
That was half of my point. The other half of my point is that the target audience is probably fairly limited, for no reason other than the lack of digital video output. If the board had DVI or HDMI output, or it had a pci-e expansion slot, in my opinion it would probably appeal to a much larger audience because it's a really neat motherboard that has one deal-killer missing feature.
Even with a dual-slot PCI riser card, it would be tough to turn this board into a good HTPC mobo and a number of HTPC builders would shun it entirely because you can't add two tuner cards and get digital output. It's not possible. Therefore, unlike the original submission and unlike the board promo materials, this board would make a terrible basis for an HTPC machine.
My lottery win wishlist is full of stuff that I either can't afford now, or don't want enough to spend any amount on but would like to have if it was either free, or I had so much money I could throw it away on stuff I don't really need or want that much.
Like those little remote control helicopters that keep showing up on woot... I don't care that they're only $7, I simply wouldn't buy them because although I'd like to play with one I'm not willing to spend any money. So unless I can acquire them for free or I win the lottery, I won't get one. But they're neat so they are on my lottery win wishlist.
This motherboard... It doesn't even fit that criteria. I am not interested in anything computer hardware that doesn't have digital output because I have almost no use at all for any electronic device that does not have digital video output. The utility of an analog-only video output approaches zero, for me.
If I ever do decide to run the time machine back half a decade and build something using an analog-only display, then I would be faced with pulling the perfectly good working hardware out of my parts bin, or buying something that isn't any more capable than hardware I discarded 4 years ago. Once again, the utility for acquiring more analog-only hardware approaches zero.
Deal killer for that board - no DVI or HDMI output combined with no PCI-e slot. Either the digital vid output or a slot suitable for a reasonably new video card with DVI/HDMI HDCP compliant output would be sufficient, but having neither makes this a rather bad choice for any type of HTPC and of limited use to many others who, like me, think a single analog video out port is a relic from the DOS ages.
That said, for someone who wants a reasonably quick and low power system and doesn't mind an analog video output (car-puter builders?) this would be a great little motherboard.
For me... No DVI and no reasonable way to add fast digital video out means it's not even on my lottery win wishlist.
That's funny. I was thinking shaping internet traffic into, say, origami swans. But maybe they're thinking shaping as in cutting off sharp corners so more internets can fit through the tubes faster.
This is funny. If they can "prove" that traffic shaping is necessary, they have essentially proven that they are unable to provide the services they are charging people for. No matter what their proof looks like, they're hosed. Either they will be forced to quit traffic shaping and admit they don't need to do it, or they'll be open to class action lawsuits for failing to provide contracted services.
I don't feel too sorry for them... The telcos tear up the street every couple of years and I still don't have fiber to my house. To hell with them. The concept of fiduciary responsibility to shareholders has gone way too far, and it's time that service companies get a little legal protection when they choose to provide their customers with their contracted service instead of making an extra penny for their shareholders. Just look at the yahoo debacle... The company leadership might actually end up IN JAIL for trying to do the "right thing" for the company and their customers, because a couple shareholders are pissed they couldn't make a fast buck by selling out to Microsoft. That is a complete perversion of the concept of fiduciary responsibility, and our legal system ought to provide for companies that actually attempt to stay in business and fulfill their contracts with their customers.
Dismantling botnet clients is one possible use of a military botnet. Assume a hostile botnet has 1,000,000 computers, and 100,000 military computers are used. That means each military botnet client only has to disable 10 hostile clients. And the military clients are behind generally robust firewalls making counterattacks difficult without first compromising the entire.mil infrastructure.
To clarify - the "military botnet" in the article uses computers owned by the military, not unsuspecting civilian computers. That's the FUD part, people equating botnet with the computers of unsuspecting people who aren't competent enough to protect their computers from compromise.
I don't seem to have much sympathy for people who's computers have been compromised any more than I have sympathy for drunk or reckless drivers who get into car accidents.
It would be nice if the response would be to either remotely eradicate botnets through antivirus or other "friendly" measures, and at least it would be nice if the response gave the user some clue why their computer no longer works. Something like a blue screen with the message "your computer was compromised and was part of botnet [insert identifier here]. You must re-install your operating system to fix this problem" would be the least I'd hope for...
As for starting their own military botnet... That seems to be FUD. They're talking mostly about taking down adversary botnets both at the server and client levels, which means taking down individual computers that have been compromised.
Um... That's pretty much what Microsoft does now with windows genuine (dis)advantage. If you're MS free, congratulations. If not, join the rest of us complainers that talk the talk but aren't ready to walk the walk.
For myself, I won't buy/use vista. If/when XP can no longer be installed because MS has turned off the authentication servers, I switch to a product that will install and run properly without an internet connection. Until that time though, I'm still a bit of a slave to MS. Part of that is inertia because MS suckered me into their scheme by gradually introducing it, and part of that is because we use MS windows and office exclusively at work. About the time XP goes completely unsupported is about the time I retire, so I'll have no incentive whatsoever to remain with MS.
The point about not buying into the DRM BS is valid, but it strikes me as weird that people will refuse to buy a game under the same conditions that they willingly accept for their operating system. The last time I checked, I can still use my computer without one game but it isn't terribly useful if the OS won't boot or install. That's why when I travel I carry knoppix and ubuntu CDs, and leave my winXP install CD at home, and why vista won't ever make it onto my computers.
But then again, Microsoft isn't either, anymore. MS can't figure out if they sell operating systems, software, advertising, email, or web portal services.
I'd be really happy if they were an operating system company that dabbles in software. That's what they did a decade ago and it worked really well. Maybe we'll get lucky and the company will split up into relatively independent companies that actually give a damn about their core products.
It's nice to see that Red Hat understands this problem, and is taking steps to ensure they don't lose their focus, even though we'd all like to see a really good microsoft OS alternative that doesn't require proprietary hardware *cough*apple*cough*
You keep going on about experience, when it's obvious you're the one with the limited experience since you have not seen any actual applications that require any more thought than "stick some more fans on it and it'll be ok" or "well, just put another AC exchanger on the roof and it'll probably work fine". You still have to get the heat out. And that's the whole point about water cooling. Getting the heat out without relying on whooshing air around (whether it's air blowing on heatsinks or air in an climate control system).
But again, you've obviously never worked on any projects that can't be solved by sticking more fans on it and you don't have the imagination to think about any applications that might not be solvable by whooshing more air around, so we may as well end the discussion.
In a datacenter using blade servers, I'd expect some sort of hybrid heat exchange system would be more useful than pure water cooling. I strongly disagree that the only benefit is lower noise, but also remember that we're not just talking about datacenter applications either. All sorts of applications (such as the htpc setup I described) could get not only lower noise but also allow higher performance due to the better managed thermal load.
And that is all water cooling does - allow a better and more managable way to move heat from one area to another. Saying that the only benefit of managing heat transfer is lower noise is a bit like saying the only benefit of owning a car is because you can choose the color.
My experience is with datacenters that are apparently not as generic as the ones you seem to be claiming experience with. Just because you do things one way and maybe always will, does not mean that another customer will have requirements that your cookie-cutter approach can satisfy.
Put a datacenter 300 ft underground, and see how far simple air cooling gets you. In that case, there MUST be a way to dump the heat that doesn't involve simply blowing air around. If it works for you, that's fine. But attempting to imply that whatever datacenter you are responsible for cooling or designing would fit every customer's needs is pretty narrow minded. Maybe you really believe what you're posting, but your level of experience outside a cookie-cutter place to stack computing power seems to be somewhat lacking.
You don't have to be an entirely patronizing asshole. It's the internet, so actually I do (heh).
But you are still arguing from a position lacking in factual information. Water cooling can be almost completely silent, and can remain so even when cooling hardware that would otherwise require very loud fans for conventional air cooling.
This does not even address the additional cooling requirements seen in overclocking, small form factor, or otherwise special use equipment. A water cooled HTPC for example typically has to trade off performance for noise, as high performance video cards and cpus get far too hot for silent air cooling even if you don't use a small enclosure that looks like it belongs next to a TV or stereo. Water cooling, especially simple ones like the review subject, would let you use a top of the line cpu and fast video card in an HTPC without having to worry about how to get the heat out of the case in a quiet manner. That means the HTPC could be used not only for home theater applications, but also for PC gaming on your widescreen plasma, LCD, or projector.
And that's just one application. There are many others, including high density rackmount or server applications that cannot sound like a jet engine or must be able to dump the heat outside of the environment containing the computers. And as for costs, and complexity, a properly designed system should not be any more trouble than the air cooling requirement of replacing fans and cleaning dust out of the filters (or system if filters are not used).
I don't water cool because I don't need to. I don't run computer hardware that generates a heat load requiring loud air cooling, and I have no problem with the heat from the cpu getting mixed with the air inside my case before it gets sucked out by the exhaust fan. I also do not have the spare time or inclination to "get into watercooling" and a half-assed approach is a good way to dump a gallon of coolant into your case and onto the floor. But an easy to use system like the review system, at a nice price, is an option I will consider for the next time I build a system from scratch because it appears to be no more difficult to install than a conventional heatsink, is quieter, and cools at least as well as a high-end (and noisy) air cooling system. And it's sealed up so it is unlikely just slapping it in and forgetting about it will result in destruction of my computer and carpet.
The ONLY THING water cooling does is (potentially) provide a larger surface area to disperse the heat. So totally wrong/ignorant... Is this a troll? Water cooling does a lot more than that.
1. Can be a LOT quieter than normal air cooling. 2. Allows for heat removal with a much smaller heat exchange unit on the heat source. 3. Allows for heat transfer to a location less affected be the excess heat being dumped (such as outside a case) instead of just dumping the heat in the immediate vicinity of either the item being cooled or near other components affected by heat.
There are other reasons, but these alone are more than enough. Did you not know these, or were you just trolling?
Even the article tries hard to tout its benefits but their own stats show its not worth it. Either it's a crappy implementation or its simply not relevant.
How so? They show that it's quieter and more effective than stock cooling, and significantly quieter than an aftermarket air cooling solution. What exactly are you looking for then? You gotta be more specific than just a completely unsupported criticism that doesn't even reflect the test results, let alone explain your personal criteria.
Here, try something like this next time:
It looks like a good/bad item because the performance was/was not what I'd expect from a water cooling system costing [insert price here]. You can get similar/better performance from [insert alternative product here] for less. Tradeoffs with the alternative are it's quieter/cheaper/louder/expensive but based on my own critera of [insert your own priorities here], I think this product is great/teh suck.
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I wonder if the new copyright cops will get tanks and guns or will be a part of DHS so they can make warrantless house intrusions and take equipment before evidence is destroyed. It's all perfectly logical how they would NEED certain military style hardware and no-knock entry authority to do their job, right? After all, their JOB will absolutely require unannounced home intrusion, just like you'd expect against violent criminals, gang hideouts, and drug labs.
Hell, if these guys show up *without* SWAT style tactics, they might reasonably expect to get shot by homeowners objecting to people busting into their houses to steal their computers.
Knock Knock
Who is it?
Copyright cops. Let us in and we're going to take your stereo, all your CDs, all your computers, and all storage media in the house, both analog and digital. Trust us, we're from the government, and we're coming in whether or not you give us permission since if we wait until you get warrant confirmation, you might have erased all evidence.
*door opens*
Gunfire follows as homeowner defends property from intruders without proof of law enforcement status
The obvious solution is to give the cops a tank and disarm the homeowner...
Why do we see a delay from when new hardware hits the market and when open source drivers get released and incorporated? Slow driver releases mean that the hardware is approaching obsolescence before the drivers get widespread acceptance, and that seems to hurt VIA especially in the low-power cpu/mobo area where any delay means the replacement hardware is already on the way.
Is that stuff worse than the mercury found in CFLs? Does it escape as easily (ie if you drop it, does it contaminate the area)? Or is this just something that suppliers manufacturers need to worry about to limit worker exposure?
Conspiracy theorists will say that it's the CFL makers who pushed this while marketing thin glass tubes full of mercury vapor as a consumer-safe product... I can't say I've ever seen an LED that's been smashed but I've had a number of CFL bulbs break, which apparently turns the site into a toxic hazard zone.
Try skype. It's really easy.
They should have tried it out on some nice sticky Texas clay. The "dirt" near my house seems to give me the same problems they're seeing.
Remember, Iraq had no WMD and no nuclear program. So basically that Canadian company just gave Iraq millions of dollars for something that did not exist. Right? That's what CNN told me, that there was no "smoking gun", and no nuclear program materials or other WMD materials were ever found.
So... Where did this stuff come from then? Did Pres Bush sneek it in last week?
Many shorelines require natural wave action and currents to remain healthy. It seems like this is yet another technological "solution" that might in the long run cause more problems. The potential issues with shoreline erosion (or whatever might happen when wave energy is dispersed prior to getting to the shore) won't happen as quickly and obviously as we have seen with wind farm bird kills (apparently those big slow moving windmills are pretty good at whacking birds), the effects could be as disastrous as some of the things we've done with the Florida Everglades and much of the gulf coast.
The point that completely escapes many environmentalists, is that you can't just discard one technology and replace it with another, and expect everything to come out all right. There are damn good reasons behind the scientific method, and they do not include stomping feet, claiming anyone with a different opinion is trying to kill the world, or jumping headlong into untested technologies that, because they aren't bad in the same way as other technologies, must be 100% good. That's an insane way to pursue large-scale technology change, but that's what Gore and his army of environmental extremists consistently propose. Anything that replaces oil must be ok, even if it results in us burning food or in this case, disrupting wave energy and water currents along a stretch of shoreline. What could possibly go wrong? Idiots.
Let's see some long-term studies in limited regional experiments before we dump too much money into this boondoggle. We already wasted far too much cutting down and burning rainforests to grow corn which we then turned around and burned... How about using tried and true scientific methods before we rush into something really harmful.
In the meantime, we already have plenty of reasonably safe and clean technologies that have been in use for decades. Every nuclear power mishap that has ever occurred caused a mere fraction of the casualties we've had in just the last decade of conventional power plant and oil refinery mishaps... How about we start using the technology that doesn't actually kill anyone on an annual basis?
I got an infrant readynas NV+, now sold as the netgear readynas. It's pricy (I got mine for around $550 without any drives) but it's dead simple to use and maintain. I popped in 4 500GB drives from their approved list, let it grind away formatting, and instantly had about 1.5ish TB of storage ready.
http://www.netgear.com/Products/Storage.aspx
Features I like - the OS allows for plugins, however the included servers more than meet my needs. It came with various media servers and compatibility with every reasonably popular operating system. It's flexible and very configurable for both security and features. You can also upgrade the ram on the system mobo, which can add up to 10% or so of real-world performance for the cost of whatever it takes to pull that used sodimm from your spare parts bin.
Feature that is ok - I used "X-Raid", which is essentially raid 5 but with the ability to swap in drives of different sizes. The array automatically sizes itself to use 4x the capacity of the smallest drive, but if you upgrade one at a time with larger drives it will automatically resize to the larger capacity when all 4 drives are the new larger size. Downside - it's proprietary and not true raid5. On the gripping hand, I don't care. It works and automatically manages itself.
Feature I don't like - it's not very fast. Even over gigabit ethernet, it's no faster than a single USB drive. You can speed up writes by turning off journaling and trying different features, but it's still not very fast.
It's possible that netgear has increased the overall speed of the device since speculation in the user forum is that any changes to the unit's motherboard due to previous design obsolescence would invariably speed up the whole device in every way, but I have no direct knowledge about this. It seems that the unit is either cpu or drive controller limited, not limited by drive or network adaptor speed once you pop in a larger sodimm.
Bottom line - for me it was pricy peace of mind. It sits quietly in the corner of my office hooked up to my gigabit switch, and it's available 7/24 for backups. When I go on vacation, I can poke a hole in my router and get relatively secure web, ftp, nfs, etc. access to the unit. I can put my music or video library on it and stream to any computer on my LAN with the included media servers. Pricy, but useful and I haven't had to fiddle with it beyond the initial setup and minor tweaking of services the first week I owned it.
Whoops, the original submission doesn't mention HTPC. My mistake. Still, it's been mentioned enough that the point remains mostly valid.
That was half of my point. The other half of my point is that the target audience is probably fairly limited, for no reason other than the lack of digital video output. If the board had DVI or HDMI output, or it had a pci-e expansion slot, in my opinion it would probably appeal to a much larger audience because it's a really neat motherboard that has one deal-killer missing feature.
Even with a dual-slot PCI riser card, it would be tough to turn this board into a good HTPC mobo and a number of HTPC builders would shun it entirely because you can't add two tuner cards and get digital output. It's not possible. Therefore, unlike the original submission and unlike the board promo materials, this board would make a terrible basis for an HTPC machine.
My lottery win wishlist is full of stuff that I either can't afford now, or don't want enough to spend any amount on but would like to have if it was either free, or I had so much money I could throw it away on stuff I don't really need or want that much.
Like those little remote control helicopters that keep showing up on woot... I don't care that they're only $7, I simply wouldn't buy them because although I'd like to play with one I'm not willing to spend any money. So unless I can acquire them for free or I win the lottery, I won't get one. But they're neat so they are on my lottery win wishlist.
This motherboard... It doesn't even fit that criteria. I am not interested in anything computer hardware that doesn't have digital output because I have almost no use at all for any electronic device that does not have digital video output. The utility of an analog-only video output approaches zero, for me.
If I ever do decide to run the time machine back half a decade and build something using an analog-only display, then I would be faced with pulling the perfectly good working hardware out of my parts bin, or buying something that isn't any more capable than hardware I discarded 4 years ago. Once again, the utility for acquiring more analog-only hardware approaches zero.
Long-winded answer I suppose, but there it is.
Deal killer for that board - no DVI or HDMI output combined with no PCI-e slot. Either the digital vid output or a slot suitable for a reasonably new video card with DVI/HDMI HDCP compliant output would be sufficient, but having neither makes this a rather bad choice for any type of HTPC and of limited use to many others who, like me, think a single analog video out port is a relic from the DOS ages.
That said, for someone who wants a reasonably quick and low power system and doesn't mind an analog video output (car-puter builders?) this would be a great little motherboard.
For me... No DVI and no reasonable way to add fast digital video out means it's not even on my lottery win wishlist.
That's funny. I was thinking shaping internet traffic into, say, origami swans. But maybe they're thinking shaping as in cutting off sharp corners so more internets can fit through the tubes faster.
This is funny. If they can "prove" that traffic shaping is necessary, they have essentially proven that they are unable to provide the services they are charging people for. No matter what their proof looks like, they're hosed. Either they will be forced to quit traffic shaping and admit they don't need to do it, or they'll be open to class action lawsuits for failing to provide contracted services.
I don't feel too sorry for them... The telcos tear up the street every couple of years and I still don't have fiber to my house. To hell with them. The concept of fiduciary responsibility to shareholders has gone way too far, and it's time that service companies get a little legal protection when they choose to provide their customers with their contracted service instead of making an extra penny for their shareholders. Just look at the yahoo debacle... The company leadership might actually end up IN JAIL for trying to do the "right thing" for the company and their customers, because a couple shareholders are pissed they couldn't make a fast buck by selling out to Microsoft. That is a complete perversion of the concept of fiduciary responsibility, and our legal system ought to provide for companies that actually attempt to stay in business and fulfill their contracts with their customers.
Dismantling botnet clients is one possible use of a military botnet. Assume a hostile botnet has 1,000,000 computers, and 100,000 military computers are used. That means each military botnet client only has to disable 10 hostile clients. And the military clients are behind generally robust firewalls making counterattacks difficult without first compromising the entire .mil infrastructure.
To clarify - the "military botnet" in the article uses computers owned by the military, not unsuspecting civilian computers. That's the FUD part, people equating botnet with the computers of unsuspecting people who aren't competent enough to protect their computers from compromise.
I don't seem to have much sympathy for people who's computers have been compromised any more than I have sympathy for drunk or reckless drivers who get into car accidents.
It would be nice if the response would be to either remotely eradicate botnets through antivirus or other "friendly" measures, and at least it would be nice if the response gave the user some clue why their computer no longer works. Something like a blue screen with the message "your computer was compromised and was part of botnet [insert identifier here]. You must re-install your operating system to fix this problem" would be the least I'd hope for...
As for starting their own military botnet... That seems to be FUD. They're talking mostly about taking down adversary botnets both at the server and client levels, which means taking down individual computers that have been compromised.
Um... That's pretty much what Microsoft does now with windows genuine (dis)advantage. If you're MS free, congratulations. If not, join the rest of us complainers that talk the talk but aren't ready to walk the walk.
For myself, I won't buy/use vista. If/when XP can no longer be installed because MS has turned off the authentication servers, I switch to a product that will install and run properly without an internet connection. Until that time though, I'm still a bit of a slave to MS. Part of that is inertia because MS suckered me into their scheme by gradually introducing it, and part of that is because we use MS windows and office exclusively at work. About the time XP goes completely unsupported is about the time I retire, so I'll have no incentive whatsoever to remain with MS.
The point about not buying into the DRM BS is valid, but it strikes me as weird that people will refuse to buy a game under the same conditions that they willingly accept for their operating system. The last time I checked, I can still use my computer without one game but it isn't terribly useful if the OS won't boot or install. That's why when I travel I carry knoppix and ubuntu CDs, and leave my winXP install CD at home, and why vista won't ever make it onto my computers.
But then again, Microsoft isn't either, anymore. MS can't figure out if they sell operating systems, software, advertising, email, or web portal services.
I'd be really happy if they were an operating system company that dabbles in software. That's what they did a decade ago and it worked really well. Maybe we'll get lucky and the company will split up into relatively independent companies that actually give a damn about their core products.
It's nice to see that Red Hat understands this problem, and is taking steps to ensure they don't lose their focus, even though we'd all like to see a really good microsoft OS alternative that doesn't require proprietary hardware *cough*apple*cough*
You keep going on about experience, when it's obvious you're the one with the limited experience since you have not seen any actual applications that require any more thought than "stick some more fans on it and it'll be ok" or "well, just put another AC exchanger on the roof and it'll probably work fine". You still have to get the heat out. And that's the whole point about water cooling. Getting the heat out without relying on whooshing air around (whether it's air blowing on heatsinks or air in an climate control system).
But again, you've obviously never worked on any projects that can't be solved by sticking more fans on it and you don't have the imagination to think about any applications that might not be solvable by whooshing more air around, so we may as well end the discussion.
In a datacenter using blade servers, I'd expect some sort of hybrid heat exchange system would be more useful than pure water cooling. I strongly disagree that the only benefit is lower noise, but also remember that we're not just talking about datacenter applications either. All sorts of applications (such as the htpc setup I described) could get not only lower noise but also allow higher performance due to the better managed thermal load.
And that is all water cooling does - allow a better and more managable way to move heat from one area to another. Saying that the only benefit of managing heat transfer is lower noise is a bit like saying the only benefit of owning a car is because you can choose the color.
My experience is with datacenters that are apparently not as generic as the ones you seem to be claiming experience with. Just because you do things one way and maybe always will, does not mean that another customer will have requirements that your cookie-cutter approach can satisfy.
Put a datacenter 300 ft underground, and see how far simple air cooling gets you. In that case, there MUST be a way to dump the heat that doesn't involve simply blowing air around. If it works for you, that's fine. But attempting to imply that whatever datacenter you are responsible for cooling or designing would fit every customer's needs is pretty narrow minded. Maybe you really believe what you're posting, but your level of experience outside a cookie-cutter place to stack computing power seems to be somewhat lacking.
But you are still arguing from a position lacking in factual information. Water cooling can be almost completely silent, and can remain so even when cooling hardware that would otherwise require very loud fans for conventional air cooling.
This does not even address the additional cooling requirements seen in overclocking, small form factor, or otherwise special use equipment. A water cooled HTPC for example typically has to trade off performance for noise, as high performance video cards and cpus get far too hot for silent air cooling even if you don't use a small enclosure that looks like it belongs next to a TV or stereo. Water cooling, especially simple ones like the review subject, would let you use a top of the line cpu and fast video card in an HTPC without having to worry about how to get the heat out of the case in a quiet manner. That means the HTPC could be used not only for home theater applications, but also for PC gaming on your widescreen plasma, LCD, or projector.
And that's just one application. There are many others, including high density rackmount or server applications that cannot sound like a jet engine or must be able to dump the heat outside of the environment containing the computers. And as for costs, and complexity, a properly designed system should not be any more trouble than the air cooling requirement of replacing fans and cleaning dust out of the filters (or system if filters are not used).
I don't water cool because I don't need to. I don't run computer hardware that generates a heat load requiring loud air cooling, and I have no problem with the heat from the cpu getting mixed with the air inside my case before it gets sucked out by the exhaust fan. I also do not have the spare time or inclination to "get into watercooling" and a half-assed approach is a good way to dump a gallon of coolant into your case and onto the floor. But an easy to use system like the review system, at a nice price, is an option I will consider for the next time I build a system from scratch because it appears to be no more difficult to install than a conventional heatsink, is quieter, and cools at least as well as a high-end (and noisy) air cooling system. And it's sealed up so it is unlikely just slapping it in and forgetting about it will result in destruction of my computer and carpet.
1. Can be a LOT quieter than normal air cooling.
2. Allows for heat removal with a much smaller heat exchange unit on the heat source.
3. Allows for heat transfer to a location less affected be the excess heat being dumped (such as outside a case) instead of just dumping the heat in the immediate vicinity of either the item being cooled or near other components affected by heat.
There are other reasons, but these alone are more than enough. Did you not know these, or were you just trolling?
How so? They show that it's quieter and more effective than stock cooling, and significantly quieter than an aftermarket air cooling solution. What exactly are you looking for then? You gotta be more specific than just a completely unsupported criticism that doesn't even reflect the test results, let alone explain your personal criteria.
Here, try something like this next time:
It looks like a good/bad item because the performance was/was not what I'd expect from a water cooling system costing [insert price here]. You can get similar/better performance from [insert alternative product here] for less. Tradeoffs with the alternative are it's quieter/cheaper/louder/expensive but based on my own critera of [insert your own priorities here], I think this product is great/teh suck.
Give it a shot, you might like it.