I'm happily paying $9.95 a month so I don't have to listen to commercials.
Which brings up a really good point.
If you pay that much per month to avoid commercials, then it follows that the useful stuff on the radio, the news, traffic, weather, music can be given a value.
Particularly music.
If you listened to X songs/month on the radio and it's worth $10 to you not to hear the commercials, then you get a market value on the songs of X/$10.
Which, I'll wager, is somewhat less than what you pay at your local CD retailer for that song.
You could probably fine tune the price/demand model by considering how much advertisers pay per listener per 30-second spot and get yet another value of the music on the radio.
When the free market place is distorted, you can see the slime oozing out the cracks.
After Java and C#, why do we need yet another rendition of "what C should have been"?
As far as I'm concerned the standards for C (89,99) are a reasonable place for this language given all its history.
More than anything else we need more standardization of libraries, in the same vein as libc or the STL, but updated to include almost 20 years worth of experience with all kinds of drivers.
Java provides these and cross-platform which is really nice, but Sun effectively owns final say on the standard.
Microsoft provides libraries, but MS owns the standard and changes it around for various marketing purposes.
Apple provides nice libraries, but they own the standard and they don't seem to want to open it up.
Programmers don't need a new language as much as they need powerful, open, standardized, updated libraries.
My workplace subscribes to SciSearch and I find it indispensible.
Being able to do keyword searches through titles and abstracts of articles from decades past has really been a boon to researchers.
It's unfortunate that the information is not freely available.
It would also be great if the full texts of old works were put online so searches in the bodies of these old papers were possible.
I won't read extensively on the screen; I'd need a handheld, lightweight, portable, bright, better than 300 dpi, at least 30 cm screen before I'd read online for extended periods.
Now, what's great is downloading and dumping PDF's to my printer.
It sure beats wandering around the periodical stacks and photocopying...
Have you noticed? Libraries are a lot more deserted than they used to be before the Web exploded.
Instead of completely shutting off the tube for a week - just don't view anything for a week!
Leave the TiVo to grab those shows you actively choose to watch at a later time of your own choosing rather than the broadcasters'.
Watching less TV will decrease the stress in your life and that anxious feeling that there is never enough time.
Spend time talking to friends and relatives, reading classic books and in-depth analysis of current events, gardening, cooking from raw ingredients, or quiet time walking through natural settings.
You'll feel a lot less like an electrified monkey in a Skinner's box and much more like a human being.
While I'm always glad to see progress on every front, gnuplot has been sitting on the 3.* level for a long time. I had the idea that the original authors left without properly designating heirs.
The SVG device driver support is intriguing, but being a "Gnu" thing it doesn't take advantage of the extensive plotutils library that, sadly, seems to have experience strong development only up to a point.
Anyway, for people interested in doing serious xy 2D scientific plots, you owe it to yourself to checkout Grace.
Everyone always raves about 3D, volume rendering and stereoscopic movies, but so much importance science gets done in plain old 2D xy plots.
That, I'm hoping, will draw enough complaints from everyday people
Never underestimate the apathy of everyday people.
If there isn't a popular uprising and they don't complain, then the net result is: a large corporation has used the current legal system and intellectual property law to keep the barriers to entry for competitors high.
Here's an interesting though: without the development of Linux and FOSS on the x86 platform Microsoft would not have been able to make quite as strong a case during its anti-trust trial that it had genuine competition.
"Oh, yes, we have competitors! Here, boy! Snarl and look fierce! Now go back in your doghouse or I'll kick you after the nice man leaves."
Once they start being used in court, there will be increasing pressure to make it a legal requirement for all cars to have them.
Count on insurance companies either requiring black boxes, or else charging more for cars without black boxes.
On the plus side, if the boxes are in the control of the driver, only record a limited snippet of trajectory close to the time of an accident, then they might be useful for exposing the truth.
But exposing the truth requires you trust the context in which you're exposing it. We need increasingly more trustworthy authorities and mechanisms for insuring they stay trustworthy if we are to feel comfortable about exposing private information to them.
too many people can get real information without having it massaged through a few corporations media outlets.
I would say rather too few people get real information, from multiple sources, cross-checking the reported facts, filling in what reporters leave out of their reporting, etc.
Most people just get pissed about something and are quite ready to take what's shoveled to them to explain "who is responsible and why".
Personally, I predict a lot of vets returning from Iraq are going to go through some confusion trying to reconcile their experiences with various explanations they see on in the media of what's going on.
start looking for seemingly random port probes by machine A on machine B, followed by machine B spewing gobs of data to machine A on a random port.
Seems like there are a variety of interesting permutations possible for port knocking, such as introducing a 3rd party machine.
Machine A sends a few pings special ports to Machine C, which then relays some packet to Machine B signaling that A wants to get service on port P. It will look as if B is initiating service with A since no packet went from A to B in the first place.
As an aside, I've always thought that the size of the time interval as well as the port number could be used for low bitrate communication channels that would look like noise.
Probably, though, it would give itself away as most servers emit from predictable ports, except maybe NAT firewalls...
It was meant to confuse consumers and trade on someone else's brand name
Yes, not doubt that Lindows was attempting to leverage the Windows name and get consumers to believe that Lindows was some kind of ersatz Windows.
But Windows is so ubiquitous.
How many distributions of software no longer bother to even mention requirements of "Runs on Win 95/98/SE/ME/2K/XP" anymore? Lots. The assumption is made that "software" is running on Windows. I love Linux and Macs, but face it: when you get "software" on a CD you can pretty well bet what it is meant to run on. Windows.
Windows has become a commodity. Like a utility, like phone or standardized electric power with special plug shapes: you simply must have it to run "software" that comes in a shrink-wrapped box.
A good argument could be made for pushing Windows (and, for that matter "Word") into the public domain in the same way that earlier trademarks such as Dry Ice and Band-Aid have lost their proprietary ties. Because of how quickly software and applications develop, take hold and build upon one another a good argument could be made that trademark protections should lapse more quickly than for products like frozen carbon dioxide and adhesive bandages.
Yes, based purely on legal arguments and the current situation, Lindows should lose the right to capitalize on someone else's trademark.
But it really opens a better, larger question of whether Windows itself deserves to be an owned trademark anymore, given its commodity status as a de facto standard. (And it ought to be freely and publicly documented so anyone that thinks they can provide the standard commodity API better, faster, cheaper should have the chance.)
Think if Intel had been able to successfully trademark x86. AFAICT, the fact it that 386, 486, etc. were numbers instead of words prevented such a move. And being able to advertise x86 compatibility has helped foster more competition in that marketplace.
If I were an ISP I'd be pretty pissed if a subscriber got my valuable name and IP addresses blackballed as a spamspewer.
Require a deposit or credit card for service and impose a contract clause that imposed monetary penalties on subscribers who did that either through negligence or, heaven forbid, on purpose.
Of course big providers like AOL and MSN with millions of subscribers don't worry as much about being blackballed because it will always be the little ISP's help desk that will get the query about why Aunt Agatha's email from aol.com didn't get through. The explanation that Aunt Agatha is using a spammer-friendly ISP is a hard sell when so many people are using it.
Airplanes have been able to land on auto pilot for years using the Instrument Landing System (ILS)!!
Interesting. I don't keep up with this technology, but years ago the landing was the diciest part of flying a plane which couldn't be automated, where cruising and take-offs could be automated.
Even now, when I'm on a commercial flight, I always implicitly rate my pilot based on the landing, how much of a bump, whether we hop, etc. Just like I rate Chinese restaurants based on their Hot & Sour Soup.
If you could afford it a single job with lesser stability
I find it interesting that jobs with "less stability" are typically the more interesting ones.
For that reason alone they're worth considering.
But consider, too, that for many people "less stability" means "about to be canned" where actually, "less stability" can often have a simultaneous meaning of "could hit it big".
I see an analogy with investing, here.
Everyone will tell you that for the long term, investing in equities, and smaller companies at that, gives you greater returns that investing in fixed incomes securities like bonds.
But there's increased risk with equities that can bite you in any given short period of time. Hence, those approaching retirement will often start to play it conservatively, investing more of their portfolio in bonds than stocks.
The best long term rate of return, whether in monetary compensation, personal fulfillment, or emotional satisfaction, seems to requires some element of instability and risk.
With an exciting risky job, though, the last thing you need is extra stress from living beyond your means. Keep your expenses simple so the extra anxiety of meeting living expenses doesn't cause you to choose the boring, safe job.
I think you get sysadmin's all over the map in terms of capability.
One thing that happens, though, is that Prof X asks grad student Y to setup that RH box to run some simulations for a research project.
Grad student Y may even be a great sysadmin, but years after he's left and his RH 5 box is still chugging away without having been rebooted ever, it's got to have some vulnerabilities that Prof X or new Grad Student Z has no clue about...
To the principal of the school and cc the office of the superintendent of the district.
Politely and concisely explain that as a concerned student you believe that the current student database system is needlessly risky as it exposes private information such as name, address and social security number on the computer network.
Students and parents rely upon the school board and administration not only to provide the best possible education, but also to protect their students' private information from unauthorized disclosure.
Tell them you think the problem is serious and warrants immediate attention and correction. You'd be happy to work with representatives from the school to demonstrate what you feel are the essential features of the problem.
Don't be too enthusiastic when it comes time to reveal the problem. (Remember, no one wants to be shown how they fucked up by contracting things out to IT For Less.) They will trust you less if you have any hint of cockiness. Act professional and courteous. Your attitude will critically determine whether you are perceived as a 1337 h4X0r that is dangerous and not to be trusted, or as an intelligent, concerned individual that is willing to your skills for the betterment of the community.
Don't go tell all your friends so that people find out by the grapevine.
Hang on to a copy of the dated letter and if nothing happens for a year, then forward a copy to the president of the PTA and to a local newspaper. But there's no good reason to light that fire before it's needed; most school administrators will try their best to fix problems the best they can with the resources they have (admittedly, money and skilled personnel are often drastically limited at many schools).
They just want it to work, hence the use of Internet Explorer.
Well, you're absolutely right about the first part.
Just like I want my automobile to just work. And it does. I take it to the mechanic and have it worked on regularly. And I pay some for that service.
But if the car manufacturer started to hide the engine diagnostic codes in an effort to make me visit the dealership for very expensive service, you can bet I'd be concerned about welded shut hoods if there were any occasion whatsoever for service. Or service packs.
People don't use IE because it just works. (There's Macs if that's the objective).
People use IE "because it came with My PC", because it's good enough, and because it's a (deliberately) hard hassle to remove and replace with something else.
I expect constant shakeouts in the FOSS world.
Successful applications will incorporate the best features, will be used by the most people, and will receive the most developer attention.
Sometimes unwarranted momentum for an application can be caused by a large distro placing the application front and center. This might not be fair to a better application, but people wanting more than the default will either find out about the better option or contribute development effort to making the B player stronger. It might not be efficient, but evolution is full of Einsteins that couldn't outrun sabre-toothed tigers, either.
The nice thing is that the carcasses of failed applications serve as idea food for people looking to build something new and better, where many many failed commercial codes with great ideas and great, potentially reusable, implementations in them end up buried forever.
is the new constitutional right that will replace that tired old 4th amendment right not to be subject to unreasonable search and seizure.
The price was right and the powers that be figured they ought to give the people a new amendment in place of the old one (if anyone counts the total number will be the same) that was getting nullified by recent legislation.
Wait.
My mistake.
You do get an additional constitutional amendment protecting you from gay people calling themselves legally married.
Just don't say the constitution is being eroded, no sir.
We're getting more constitutional protections, not less.
switching to Linux for their desktop due to expensive Windows licensing fees and high-profile security vulnerabilities.
It's a good question how much Linux desktop deployment will occur before the first pre-installed Microsoft OS's on PCs with built-in hardware-level DRM (TCPA, etc.) begin to appear.
That OS will be trumpeted as being "more secure" and "lets you watch videos, listen to music", which will help to sell it to the virus-weary public and to the content paranoid **AA members.
And it's questionable whether people will even care if their PC is not "free" as in freedom as long as they're getting enough perceived benefit for not too much perceived cost.
but practically, the performanc is "high enough" and certainly a helluva lot cheaper than buying a custom system.
It's just like the old days, except more so:
Performance = log(Price)
and you can end up paying a lot of money to squeeze out that extra performance.
Given that Linux clusters can achieve speeds in excess of a teraflop, that available dollars for computer purchases are finite, and that per processor performance and price performance is increasing, the market size for the world's highest performing machine is rapidly vanishing to a set of measure zero.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm happily paying $9.95 a month so I don't have to listen to commercials.
Which brings up a really good point.
If you pay that much per month to avoid commercials, then it follows that the useful stuff on the radio, the news, traffic, weather, music can be given a value.
Particularly music.
If you listened to X songs/month on the radio and it's worth $10 to you not to hear the commercials, then you get a market value on the songs of X/$10.
Which, I'll wager, is somewhat less than what you pay at your local CD retailer for that song.
You could probably fine tune the price/demand model by considering how much advertisers pay per listener per 30-second spot and get yet another value of the music on the radio.
When the free market place is distorted, you can see the slime oozing out the cracks.
After Java and C#, why do we need yet another rendition of "what C should have been"?
As far as I'm concerned the standards for C (89,99) are a reasonable place for this language given all its history.
More than anything else we need more standardization of libraries, in the same vein as libc or the STL, but updated to include almost 20 years worth of experience with all kinds of drivers.
Programmers don't need a new language as much as they need powerful, open, standardized, updated libraries.
My workplace subscribes to SciSearch and I find it indispensible.
Being able to do keyword searches through titles and abstracts of articles from decades past has really been a boon to researchers.
It's unfortunate that the information is not freely available.
It would also be great if the full texts of old works were put online so searches in the bodies of these old papers were possible.
I won't read extensively on the screen; I'd need a handheld, lightweight, portable, bright, better than 300 dpi, at least 30 cm screen before I'd read online for extended periods.
Now, what's great is downloading and dumping PDF's to my printer.
It sure beats wandering around the periodical stacks and photocopying...
Have you noticed? Libraries are a lot more deserted than they used to be before the Web exploded.
I don't know why, but for some reason I'm reminded of what I heard once about tornadoes.
It's not the high winds that damage a house, it's that sudden change of pressure that causes the house to explode from the imbalance.
TiVo is your friend here, just like Nicorettes!
Instead of completely shutting off the tube for a week - just don't view anything for a week!
Leave the TiVo to grab those shows you actively choose to watch at a later time of your own choosing rather than the broadcasters'.
Watching less TV will decrease the stress in your life and that anxious feeling that there is never enough time.
Spend time talking to friends and relatives, reading classic books and in-depth analysis of current events, gardening, cooking from raw ingredients, or quiet time walking through natural settings.
You'll feel a lot less like an electrified monkey in a Skinner's box and much more like a human being.
While I'm always glad to see progress on every front, gnuplot has been sitting on the 3.* level for a long time. I had the idea that the original authors left without properly designating heirs.
The SVG device driver support is intriguing, but being a "Gnu" thing it doesn't take advantage of the extensive plotutils library that, sadly, seems to have experience strong development only up to a point.
Anyway, for people interested in doing serious xy 2D scientific plots, you owe it to yourself to checkout Grace.
Everyone always raves about 3D, volume rendering and stereoscopic movies, but so much importance science gets done in plain old 2D xy plots.
That, I'm hoping, will draw enough complaints from everyday people
Never underestimate the apathy of everyday people.
If there isn't a popular uprising and they don't complain, then the net result is: a large corporation has used the current legal system and intellectual property law to keep the barriers to entry for competitors high.
Here's an interesting though: without the development of Linux and FOSS on the x86 platform Microsoft would not have been able to make quite as strong a case during its anti-trust trial that it had genuine competition.
But since this is only been reserved for internet usage you will not have all of the other crap on this range as you do on the 2.4GHz band.
Mmmm.
But the Internet isn't reserved.
Expect VoIP, video phones, X10 over IP alarm systems, http-baby-monitors, (the list goes on) to clog up that there "Internet".
Seems to me that the
No way!
This is absolutely the very first time I've ever heard of anything like this happening.
I have it on good authority that our free market system - the best that money can buy - has built-in mechanisms to prevent that kind of abuse.
Once they start being used in court, there will be increasing pressure to make it a legal requirement for all cars to have them.
Count on insurance companies either requiring black boxes, or else charging more for cars without black boxes.
On the plus side, if the boxes are in the control of the driver, only record a limited snippet of trajectory close to the time of an accident, then they might be useful for exposing the truth.
But exposing the truth requires you trust the context in which you're exposing it. We need increasingly more trustworthy authorities and mechanisms for insuring they stay trustworthy if we are to feel comfortable about exposing private information to them.
too many people can get real information without having it massaged through a few corporations media outlets.
I would say rather too few people get real information, from multiple sources, cross-checking the reported facts, filling in what reporters leave out of their reporting, etc.
Most people just get pissed about something and are quite ready to take what's shoveled to them to explain "who is responsible and why".
Personally, I predict a lot of vets returning from Iraq are going to go through some confusion trying to reconcile their experiences with various explanations they see on in the media of what's going on.
start looking for seemingly random port probes by machine A on machine B, followed by machine B spewing gobs of data to machine A on a random port.
Seems like there are a variety of interesting permutations possible for port knocking, such as introducing a 3rd party machine.
Machine A sends a few pings special ports to Machine C, which then relays some packet to Machine B signaling that A wants to get service on port P. It will look as if B is initiating service with A since no packet went from A to B in the first place.
As an aside, I've always thought that the size of the time interval as well as the port number could be used for low bitrate communication channels that would look like noise.
Probably, though, it would give itself away as most servers emit from predictable ports, except maybe NAT firewalls...
It was meant to confuse consumers and trade on someone else's brand name
Yes, not doubt that Lindows was attempting to leverage the Windows name and get consumers to believe that Lindows was some kind of ersatz Windows.
But Windows is so ubiquitous.
How many distributions of software no longer bother to even mention requirements of "Runs on Win 95/98/SE/ME/2K/XP" anymore? Lots. The assumption is made that "software" is running on Windows. I love Linux and Macs, but face it: when you get "software" on a CD you can pretty well bet what it is meant to run on. Windows.
Windows has become a commodity. Like a utility, like phone or standardized electric power with special plug shapes: you simply must have it to run "software" that comes in a shrink-wrapped box.
A good argument could be made for pushing Windows (and, for that matter "Word") into the public domain in the same way that earlier trademarks such as Dry Ice and Band-Aid have lost their proprietary ties. Because of how quickly software and applications develop, take hold and build upon one another a good argument could be made that trademark protections should lapse more quickly than for products like frozen carbon dioxide and adhesive bandages.
Yes, based purely on legal arguments and the current situation, Lindows should lose the right to capitalize on someone else's trademark.
But it really opens a better, larger question of whether Windows itself deserves to be an owned trademark anymore, given its commodity status as a de facto standard. (And it ought to be freely and publicly documented so anyone that thinks they can provide the standard commodity API better, faster, cheaper should have the chance.)
Think if Intel had been able to successfully trademark x86 . AFAICT, the fact it that 386, 486, etc. were numbers instead of words prevented such a move. And being able to advertise x86 compatibility has helped foster more competition in that marketplace.
If I were an ISP I'd be pretty pissed if a subscriber got my valuable name and IP addresses blackballed as a spamspewer.
Require a deposit or credit card for service and impose a contract clause that imposed monetary penalties on subscribers who did that either through negligence or, heaven forbid, on purpose.
Of course big providers like AOL and MSN with millions of subscribers don't worry as much about being blackballed because it will always be the little ISP's help desk that will get the query about why Aunt Agatha's email from aol.com didn't get through. The explanation that Aunt Agatha is using a spammer-friendly ISP is a hard sell when so many people are using it.
Airplanes have been able to land on auto pilot for years using the Instrument Landing System (ILS)!!
Interesting. I don't keep up with this technology, but years ago the landing was the diciest part of flying a plane which couldn't be automated, where cruising and take-offs could be automated.
Even now, when I'm on a commercial flight, I always implicitly rate my pilot based on the landing, how much of a bump, whether we hop, etc. Just like I rate Chinese restaurants based on their Hot & Sour Soup.
If you could afford it a single job with lesser stability
I find it interesting that jobs with "less stability" are typically the more interesting ones.
For that reason alone they're worth considering.
But consider, too, that for many people "less stability" means "about to be canned" where actually, "less stability" can often have a simultaneous meaning of "could hit it big".
I see an analogy with investing, here.
Everyone will tell you that for the long term, investing in equities, and smaller companies at that, gives you greater returns that investing in fixed incomes securities like bonds.
But there's increased risk with equities that can bite you in any given short period of time. Hence, those approaching retirement will often start to play it conservatively, investing more of their portfolio in bonds than stocks.
The best long term rate of return, whether in monetary compensation, personal fulfillment, or emotional satisfaction, seems to requires some element of instability and risk.
With an exciting risky job, though, the last thing you need is extra stress from living beyond your means. Keep your expenses simple so the extra anxiety of meeting living expenses doesn't cause you to choose the boring, safe job.
you see so many really bright sysadmins at
I think you get sysadmin's all over the map in terms of capability.
One thing that happens, though, is that Prof X asks grad student Y to setup that RH box to run some simulations for a research project.
Grad student Y may even be a great sysadmin, but years after he's left and his RH 5 box is still chugging away without having been rebooted ever, it's got to have some vulnerabilities that Prof X or new Grad Student Z has no clue about...
has shown that corporations can be held liable for their irresponsibility for exploiting the ignorant.
I wish.
Our whole damn culture is a corporate strategy to create fools who will part with their money.
Certified mail.
To the principal of the school and cc the office of the superintendent of the district.
Politely and concisely explain that as a concerned student you believe that the current student database system is needlessly risky as it exposes private information such as name, address and social security number on the computer network.
Students and parents rely upon the school board and administration not only to provide the best possible education, but also to protect their students' private information from unauthorized disclosure.
Tell them you think the problem is serious and warrants immediate attention and correction. You'd be happy to work with representatives from the school to demonstrate what you feel are the essential features of the problem.
Don't be too enthusiastic when it comes time to reveal the problem. (Remember, no one wants to be shown how they fucked up by contracting things out to IT For Less.) They will trust you less if you have any hint of cockiness. Act professional and courteous. Your attitude will critically determine whether you are perceived as a 1337 h4X0r that is dangerous and not to be trusted, or as an intelligent, concerned individual that is willing to your skills for the betterment of the community.
Don't go tell all your friends so that people find out by the grapevine.
Hang on to a copy of the dated letter and if nothing happens for a year, then forward a copy to the president of the PTA and to a local newspaper. But there's no good reason to light that fire before it's needed; most school administrators will try their best to fix problems the best they can with the resources they have (admittedly, money and skilled personnel are often drastically limited at many schools).
It's the visionary, the enforcer, the guy with the big stick that beats you until your GUI is perfect.
Very well, then.
Listen up, you GUI cowboys!
You better design your GUI application according the new standards!
That's right! No more paychecks until it's done right!
.They just want it to work, hence the use of Internet Explorer.
Well, you're absolutely right about the first part.
Just like I want my automobile to just work. And it does. I take it to the mechanic and have it worked on regularly. And I pay some for that service.
But if the car manufacturer started to hide the engine diagnostic codes in an effort to make me visit the dealership for very expensive service, you can bet I'd be concerned about welded shut hoods if there were any occasion whatsoever for service. Or service packs.
People don't use IE because it just works. (There's Macs if that's the objective).
People use IE "because it came with My PC", because it's good enough, and because it's a (deliberately) hard hassle to remove and replace with something else.
I expect constant shakeouts in the FOSS world.
Successful applications will incorporate the best features, will be used by the most people, and will receive the most developer attention.
Sometimes unwarranted momentum for an application can be caused by a large distro placing the application front and center. This might not be fair to a better application, but people wanting more than the default will either find out about the better option or contribute development effort to making the B player stronger. It might not be efficient, but evolution is full of Einsteins that couldn't outrun sabre-toothed tigers, either.
The nice thing is that the carcasses of failed applications serve as idea food for people looking to build something new and better, where many many failed commercial codes with great ideas and great, potentially reusable, implementations in them end up buried forever.
constitutionally-protected right to advertise.
is the new constitutional right that will replace that tired old 4th amendment right not to be subject to unreasonable search and seizure.
The price was right and the powers that be figured they ought to give the people a new amendment in place of the old one (if anyone counts the total number will be the same) that was getting nullified by recent legislation.
Wait.
My mistake.
You do get an additional constitutional amendment protecting you from gay people calling themselves legally married.
Just don't say the constitution is being eroded, no sir.
We're getting more constitutional protections, not less.
switching to Linux for their desktop due to expensive Windows licensing fees and high-profile security vulnerabilities.
It's a good question how much Linux desktop deployment will occur before the first pre-installed Microsoft OS's on PCs with built-in hardware-level DRM (TCPA, etc.) begin to appear.
That OS will be trumpeted as being "more secure" and "lets you watch videos, listen to music", which will help to sell it to the virus-weary public and to the content paranoid **AA members.
And it's questionable whether people will even care if their PC is not "free" as in freedom as long as they're getting enough perceived benefit for not too much perceived cost.
Would someone enlighten me to the main differences between Savannah, GForge and SourceForge?
[IIRC, SourceForge is written in PHP. I've never been comfortable with how customizable and interoperable the whole PHP package is...]
but practically, the performanc is "high enough" and certainly a helluva lot cheaper than buying a custom system.
It's just like the old days, except more so:
and you can end up paying a lot of money to squeeze out that extra performance.Given that Linux clusters can achieve speeds in excess of a teraflop, that available dollars for computer purchases are finite, and that per processor performance and price performance is increasing, the market size for the world's highest performing machine is rapidly vanishing to a set of measure zero.