Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
.....
/dev/md6 184G 166G 19G 91% /home
/dev/md7 111G 20G 91G 19% /home2
--
Mark Krenz
Bloomington Linux Users Group
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Thank you too, and I hope the same. I am going to try to keep my
comments brief, thinking that we've both spoken our peace (and to
great purpose!!).
>> One of my points is that additional power plants, per se, is not
>> necessarily all that bad. Indiana has at least 15 power plants, and
>> even if they aren't as high-power as many others, they exist here
>> without nagatively impacting quality of life all that much (I only
>> know where a couple of them are) even though they are about mostly
>> using the dirtiest power generation technology still in operation in
>> the western world.
>
>I don't believe "without negatively impacting quality of life all that
>much" is accuate; see below.
Quality of life here is sky-high, probably about the best any people
have ever experienced in the history of humanity. The air and water
are clean and the flora thrive as well. What you are suggesting below
is that there's a price to be paid down the road because of global
warming, and that's a very good thing to remember. However, what I
was saying was that the presence of Indiana's power plants (which,
I'll reiterate one last time, use about the most polluting of all
known technologies) do not leave the landscape decimated nor the air
unbreathable.
>> Put another way, one of my main points is this: a lot of
>> environmentalists take an attitude of "every bit of development is
>> bad", I look at it more as "we want a very good cost/benefit ratio for
>> any development that we do." Even if my numbers were off, I still
>> like the cost/benefit of computing.
>
>I look at it this way: I have already grown up in a world
>significantly more polluted than that of my parents. At the current
>environmental cost of the energy we're using (assuming that it doesn't
>go up or down), my grand-children will inherit a world significantly
>more polluted than mine, and I'll be surprised if my
>great-great-grandchildren (should I have any) know what a clear blue
>sky looks like, or what it feels like to swim in the ocean.
If you view carbon-in-the-air as synonymous with pollution, then I
suspect that your claim is correct. I grew up in a city (Cleveland)
that was reknowned for a sizable river that "caught on fire", which of
course was really the pollutants in the river. I've visited that very
section of river several times recently (including my last trip to
visit my parents, remember that from the beginning of the
conversation?), and the river surface and the air around it and the
lake that it flows into are all unspeakably cleaner than when I was
young. I can't back it up with data, but I'm not the only one who
believes that the US is cleaner than it used to be.
Of course, your assertion was about the world, so that's different.
To some degree the US is exporting its pollution, but I think this is
less a factor than that we know more about how to do things cleaner
and as a society we're putting energy into actually doing it. These
things are good. I think the message here should be "don't let your
previous successes go to your head, there's still much to be
addressed!" That's a very different message than "the world just
keeps getting more and more polluted." Again, pollution is a
catch-all, there's no simple way to compare "how polluted" two things
are to each other. So, to talk specifically, we'd need to define what
kind of pollution we're interested in.
>I don't believe "every bit of development is bad", though I think I'm
>probably an environmentalist because it's painful for me to consider
>how quickly our world's wild spaces are being destroyed, taking the
>away from future generations for negligible economic gain today.
Right but again, if you're just looking at the geographical footprint
of a power plant, you get incredible bang-for-your-buck for that. set
aside a few acres for a power plant and the lives of a million are
transformed. If you ask me, if your goal is to preserve wild-space,
you're much better off not eating meat than limiting construction of
power plants. And of course, none of this compares with limiting
population growth.
>> and added up all of the power ratings of all the plants. The total
>> was 25,885 MW, or about 1.75 Itaipus. Using the "25 Itaipus to double
>> the world's computers" formula, this means that the COAL FUELED plants
>> in Indiana and Ohio provide about 7% of energy required to run the
>> world's computers. So, even knowing that this only includes coal fuel
>> plants, my previous assertion was about an order of magnitude off. I
>> stand corrected. But, 7% is definitely a dent in my book.
>
>I'll concede that's a dent, but how sustainable is that in terms of
>how long will that fuel be available in economically viable
>prices?...without considering the environmental impact of adding yet
>more carbon to our atmosphere.
I'm not suggesting we should build lots more coal plants. Remember,
Itaipu is a hydro-electric plant, it doesn't produce any carbon
emissions at all! Of course, hydro-power has huge environmental
impact, and I think putting on carbon blinders leads to some terrible
results. going on a tangent, if you visit the Inconvenient Truth's
website to calculate your own carbon impact,
http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/carboncalculator/
you'll find that just by the fact that you live in the midwest, you
can't compete with people who live in the Pacific Northwest. That's
because much of their power comes from hydro-electric power. That's
good for carbon emissions, but none of the envionmentalists I know
are really big fans of the countless dams in the PNW, and I've never
heard any suggest that we should be building more dams to save the
planet, even though that would reduce my personal carbon impact by a
huge percentage. Different technologies have different impact,
focusing on one thing misses the forest for the trees.
Now, there are certainly things that power companies in the midwest
can do to reduce their environmental impact, and I'm very much for
encouraging that. That's why I participate in Duke Energy's GoGreen
program.
http://www.duke-energy.com/indiana/products/gogreenpower.asp
through this program, I allegedly pay them to convert 400kWh per month
(slightly higher than my household usage) of power from a tradition
source to something greener for $10/month. I can't deny skepticism
about how well it works, but I did receive an announcement of some
green plant they were involved with, and I head the president of Duke
on NPR extolling the virtues of conservation. Sorry I'm not able to
find web links about these things, but it does seem that the company
is aware that people want them to be clean.
>I'm already not driving an SUV, switching to CFLs, minimizing the A/C
>and heating I use. It's up to the car geeks and lighting geeks and
>HVAC geeks to get excited about revolutionizing the power consumption
>of those areas—I don't know enough about internal combustion engines,
>myself, to be excited about the next big breakthrough in energy
>efficiency (and I'm cynical that the car companies and the oil
>companies even care about improving efficiency until the price of gas
>doubles again).
I actually do think the car companies are trying frantically to come
up with some other alternatives, and I'm glad about that. I bet
executives at the "Big Three" cringe every time they hear the word
"Prius". It does make them look lumbering that it takes them so long
to bring things to market, though.
>I'm a computer geek, on a computer geek mailing list, so that's what I
>get excited about and write about.
Very good point! And again, I certainly think improved computer
efficiency is great and I've already expressed my wish that thin
clients were a lot more common. I'm not against you. I just think
energy is better spent elsewhere. Indeed, what inspired my original
comment was the idea that 25 big power plants for a billion computers
was not a bad deal. I'd like to see how many big power plants it
would take to keep a billion people's living spaces at 72F. I'm not
going to take the time to compute it now, but I'd wager that it'd
dwarf that 25 number. Thus, I'll continue to encourage my friends to
heat/cool their homes wisely and think about their computers as a
sideline curiosity.
>I understand that when surrounded by SUVs, central air, and Boeing
>747s it's hard to get excited about reducing the power consumption of
>your computer at home, but I work with computer labs, and if we
>consider your estimate correct, then each of our 20 station computer
>labs is the equivalent of one automobile and we have the equivalent of
>7 or more automobiles running.
If you're not already doing so, turn them all off at night and you'll
cut that number to 3.5! :)
>Incidentally, my guess is you've forgotten to include planes, trains,
>boats(ships), energy plants (though I guess you do mention
>refrigerators and air conditioners, if that's what you meant), all
>kinds of manufacturing plants and factories, heating all our
>buildings, etc. in your pie graph if you think cars are 95%+ of our
>environmental impact.
right, I was aware of this actually. My graph was of just cars and
computers put together, and computers were already a pretty small
slice. add in those other things you mention and I suspect computers
will be near the bottom of the list.
>> And, I doubt that the typical third world
>> person is going to be more excited about a computer than they would be
>> about a car or an air conditioner as their quality of life improves.
>
>I am a third world person, and my perception is different than yours.
>
>In my tropical third-world country, air-conditioning is not a way of
>life like it is here in temperate Indiana, and neither is everyone
>owning a car.
>
>Would they rather have a car or air-conditioning? Well, a lot of them
>have a chance to and many of those decide it's not worth it. My dad
>has a car, and he rarely uses it. We'd rather take taxis or buses the
>vast majority of the time. My brother is a taxi driver. We also have a
>room with an air-conditioner, but it's only really on when my fiancée
>and I are visiting.
Very interesting, and thanks for the perspective. Based on your
descriptions, I'd wager that your family lives in a large city.
transportation needs in such places are very different than in less
densely populated areas. The value of a car/truck to a farmer must be
immense. Plus, all of those taxis, buses, etc, also use energy. More
efficient, yes, but supplying such services to a billion people
presently without them would be a huge impact as well...
>But we have three computers at my dad's house. Every one of my
>siblings has at least one computer at home (and my nephew has an
>XBOX). A good chunk of my extended family has computers in their home.
>And these are on and being used regularly (when the power isn't going
>out). I am in regular correspondence with my family, and am kept
>abreast of news, thanks to computers and the Internet.
>
>The number of institutes in my city alone that are dedicated to
>teaching people computer skills so they can get better-paying jobs is
>staggering.
It is indeed great! I love the Internet! :)
>The quality of life improvement of having your own car, or having air
>conditioning is really not all that great, IMHO, compared to the
>quality of life improvement of having a computer with Internet access,
>especially when you do a cost/benefit analysis.
I'm with you on the AC. I live without AC, and even worked at home
without one this summer (a few very uncomfortable days, I admit, but
it's definite doable, and I sure hope American's don't export their
wimpiness about ambient temperature). However, I hold to my position
on cars... we're extremely used to easy transportation, people who
don't have it would find it extremely desirable I think (whether they
are driving or a cab driver is). Anyway, it doesn't much matter
whether they'd prefer easy transportation or Internet/computer access,
because they will almost certainly want both once they can afford
them.
So much for keeping my comments brief! Sorry about that... I love
this kind of conversation, what can I say. Thanks for challenging and
educating me!
David
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Thanks for sharing that. Interesting, but very depressing.
There are some points of what seems like black humor—or grasping to
see a silver lining—to me, like "Drier areas are likely to see
salinisation and desertification of agricultural land, with falling
crop yields and livestock productivity reducing food security.
_However, soybean yields are likely to increase in temperate zones._"
Simón
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> Quoting Mark Krenz <mark@slugbug.org>:
>
> > I really hate graphs without scales, they tell me absolutely nothing.
> >For all I know that could mean that the sea level will rise an inch in
> >the next 1000 years and the temperature will rise 1 degree before
> >stabilizing.
> >
> > I know that they are just trying to get a concept across but to me,
> >but a good indicator that someone is hiding something in a graph is when
> >they omit a scale.
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Bloomington Linux Users Group
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> I really hate graphs without scales, they tell me absolutely nothing.
> For all I know that could mean that the sea level will rise an inch in
> the next 1000 years and the temperature will rise 1 degree before
> stabilizing.
>
> I know that they are just trying to get a concept across but to me,
> but a good indicator that someone is hiding something in a graph is when
> they omit a scale.
In case anyone's interested, here's something more detailed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/6528979.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/06_04_05_climate.pdf
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I really hate graphs without scales, they tell me absolutely nothing.
For all I know that could mean that the sea level will rise an inch in
the next 1000 years and the temperature will rise 1 degree before
stabilizing.
I know that they are just trying to get a concept across but to me,
but a good indicator that someone is hiding something in a graph is when
they omit a scale.
--
Mark Krenz
Bloomington Linux Users Group
http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/
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On 10/20/07, David Ernst <david.ernst@davidernst.net> wrote:
> Apologies to everyone who had hoped that this conversation had gone
> away. I've been itching to reply all week, but somehow I've gotten
> less good at spending hours of personal time every day on my
> computer. :) Maybe this is good, but I'm not sure.
Yeah, I think it's good to get away regularly.
> You make an excellent point, I was naively assuming that power plant
> output was roughly equivalent, and that's clearly not the case.
> However, you're arguing it too far in the other direction (see
> below)...
>
> One of my points is that additional power plants, per se, is not
> necessarily all that bad. Indiana has at least 15 power plants, and
> even if they aren't as high-power as many others, they exist here
> without nagatively impacting quality of life all that much (I only
> know where a couple of them are) even though they are about mostly
> using the dirtiest power generation technology still in operation in
> the western world.
I don't believe "without negatively impacting quality of life all that
much" is accuate; see below.
> Put another way, one of my main points is this: a lot of
> environmentalists take an attitude of "every bit of development is
> bad", I look at it more as "we want a very good cost/benefit ratio for
> any development that we do." Even if my numbers were off, I still
> like the cost/benefit of computing.
I look at it this way: I have already grown up in a world
significantly more polluted than that of my parents. At the current
environmental cost of the energy we're using (assuming that it doesn't
go up or down), my grand-children will inherit a world significantly
more polluted than mine, and I'll be surprised if my
great-great-grandchildren (should I have any) know what a clear blue
sky looks like, or what it feels like to swim in the ocean.
For a look at how long it will take for the damage we've already done
through carbon emissions to stabilize (much less return to previous
levels), assuming optimistic figures that we'll start cutting back on
yearly emission growth today, and be actually reducing our yearly
emissions by halfway through this century:
<http://www.mongabay.com/images/2006/graphs/ipcc-lag.jpg>
I don't believe "every bit of development is bad", though I think I'm
probably an environmentalist because it's painful for me to consider
how quickly our world's wild spaces are being destroyed, taking the
away from future generations for negligible economic gain today.
I firmly believe in cost/benefit analysis. I just don't agree that
using our current situation as an acceptable baseline is a sane place
to start. Our current situation is unacceptable, and future
development must reverse the ratio. We must get more benefit for the
cost, so we can bring the cost back to an acceptable baseline.
> I'm quite sure you meant to say "5GW" or equivalently "5,000MW" in
> that sentence. Simple mistake, but three orders of magnitude really
> changes the equations. :)
That's true.
> and added up all of the power ratings of all the plants. The total
> was 25,885 MW, or about 1.75 Itaipus. Using the "25 Itaipus to double
> the world's computers" formula, this means that the COAL FUELED plants
> in Indiana and Ohio provide about 7% of energy required to run the
> world's computers. So, even knowing that this only includes coal fuel
> plants, my previous assertion was about an order of magnitude off. I
> stand corrected. But, 7% is definitely a dent in my book.
I'll concede that's a dent, but how sustainable is that in terms of
how long will that fuel be available in economically viable
prices?...without considering the environmental impact of adding yet
more carbon to our atmosphere.
> On Sat, Oct 13, 2007 at 12:10:36AM -0400, "Simón A. Ruiz" wrote:
> >Unless it turns out that computers are in fact feeding power into the
> >electrical grid, there's really no way to argue against coming up with
> >strategies to deliver computing with less power.
>
> Here's my basic argument: I think it's fair to assume that cars use at
> least 20x as much power in general use than computers do, and
> typically generate more pollution per unit energy. So, add up cars
> and computers and I'm seeing a pie chart showing that 95%+ of the
> environmental impact coming from cars. Then you're saying "let's make
> computers more efficient to benefit the earth" and what I'm saying
> back is "ok, but if we somehow got computers to run without
> electricity, we'd make at best a 5% improvement. I think our energy
> is better spent working on a 6% gain in fuel efficiency for
> automobiles." And, when something like a 50% gain in fuel efficiency
> can be had for simply driving a small car vs. a big one, it's hard for
> me to get too excited about computers.
>
> And then, there's refrigerators and air conditioners...
Well, my first reaction is it's not an either-or choice. Every bit of
development needs to take a good hard look at how to improve their
cost/benefit ratio drastically.
I'm already not driving an SUV, switching to CFLs, minimizing the A/C
and heating I use. It's up to the car geeks and lighting geeks and
HVAC geeks to get excited about revolutionizing the power consumption
of those areas—I don't know enough about internal combustion engines,
myself, to be excited about the next big breakthrough in energy
efficiency (and I'm cynical that the car companies and the oil
companies even care about improving efficiency until the price of gas
doubles again).
I'm a computer geek, on a computer geek mailing list, so that's what I
get excited about and write about.
I agree that improving computer power efficiency is far from the
biggest piece of the puzzle that really turns our environmental rape
around, though I don't think it'll be an insignificant piece.
I understand that when surrounded by SUVs, central air, and Boeing
747s it's hard to get excited about reducing the power consumption of
your computer at home, but I work with computer labs, and if we
consider your estimate correct, then each of our 20 station computer
labs is the equivalent of one automobile and we have the equivalent of
7 or more automobiles running.
But anyways, the main thing that excites me about this is the
possibility of bringing computing to a third-world situation like my
home country (or inner-city USA) in a cheap, sustainable way. If you
can get 10 times as many computers on the same power circuit, costing
the same amount per month on the power bill, you're ahead ten times.
If they have no moving parts, then the failure rates drop dramatically
and maintenance costs plummet.
On the other hand, though not mutually exclusive by any means, if your
power availability is lower, because you're so far from civilization
that you can't connect up to a power-grid (or your local power-grid
sucks, as ours does in my home country) and you produce all your own
power, it's ten times more convenient to use a computer which uses ten
times less energy.
Incidentally, my guess is you've forgotten to include planes, trains,
boats(ships), energy plants (though I guess you do mention
refrigerators and air conditioners, if that's what you meant), all
kinds of manufacturing plants and factories, heating all our
buildings, etc. in your pie graph if you think cars are 95%+ of our
environmental impact.
<http://www.mongabay.com/images/2006/graphs/end-use_sector_2004.jpg>
> Don't forget wind!! :)
I was going to say that the cost/benefit of mounting a wind generator
in southern Indiana is not really all that viable, consider the
up-front and ongoing costs compared to the average wind speed, but
then I saw a new kind of wind generator on the Make blog that will be
significantly cheaper to install and maintain:
<http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/10/thirdworld_wind_power.html>
So, yeah, wind can become a supplement even in southern Indiana,
especially in the winter months when solar power is less abundant
(thought that happens to be when wind generators need most
maintenance).
And there's Stirling engines...
> And, I doubt that the typical third world
> person is going to be more excited about a computer than they would be
> about a car or an air conditioner as their quality of life improves.
I am a third world person, and my perception is different than yours.
In my tropical third-world country, air-conditioning is not a way of
life like it is here in temperate Indiana, and neither is everyone
owning a car.
Would they rather have a car or air-conditioning? Well, a lot of them
have a chance to and many of those decide it's not worth it. My dad
has a car, and he rarely uses it. We'd rather take taxis or buses the
vast majority of the time. My brother is a taxi driver. We also have a
room with an air-conditioner, but it's only really on when my fiancée
and I are visiting.
But we have three computers at my dad's house. Every one of my
siblings has at least one computer at home (and my nephew has an
XBOX). A good chunk of my extended family has computers in their home.
And these are on and being used regularly (when the power isn't going
out). I am in regular correspondence with my family, and am kept
abreast of news, thanks to computers and the Internet.
The number of institutes in my city alone that are dedicated to
teaching people computer skills so they can get better-paying jobs is
staggering.
The quality of life improvement of having your own car, or having air
conditioning is really not all that great, IMHO, compared to the
quality of life improvement of having a computer with Internet access,
especially when you do a cost/benefit analysis.
> David
Simón
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I never played with the menus prior to the upgrade either...
> Cheers,
> Steven
>
> On Fri, Oct 26, 2007 at 11:20:57PM -0400, Simón Ruiz wrote:
>> I dunno, I'll double-check when I get home. I DID go through an
>> upgrade on our "Media Center", and on Sarah's laptop...It looks like
>> you're right on the money there, the old "Desktop Effects" dialog is
>> still present. Poo.
>>
>> Simón
>>
>> On 10/23/07, Joe Auty <joe@netmusician.org> wrote:
>>> Simón Ruiz wrote:
>>>> Right, on a clean Gutsy install Desktop Effects options are just a
>>>> panel in the Appearance dialog, not their own dialog.
>>>>
>>> Hmmmm... maybe when you do an upgrade, old panels are not specifically
>>> removed and/or hidden?
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--
Joe Auty
NetMusician: web publishing software for musicians
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joe@netmusician.org
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Basically, there are a lot of modifier bits available. The modifier bits
generated by your keyboard keys may be any of a number of options. The
GNOME GUI should give you enough options and prevent you from screwing
yourself too badly.
Of note:
The Windows key is frequently mapped to Super.
Meta is sometimes the same as Alt, but this need not be the case. In
EMACS, in particular, you may have Alt and Meta with different
mappings.
A third-level chooser is used in some international keyboard mappings.
These would be keys with two symbols above the primary key symbol. The
first you can get with 'shift'. For the second, though, you need to use
the third-level chooser key.
For more information you can read:
Some hints about xmodmap(1) and the X11 keyboard model:
http://www.in-ulm.de/~mascheck/X11/xmodmap.html
Or the GoogleCached version:
That article mentioned the xkeycaps documentation was well-written:
http://www.jwz.org/xkeycaps/man.html
It also mentioned that the best docs were included with the X11 spec:
http://www.x-docs.org/XKB/XKBlib.pdf
Cheers,
Steven Black
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Could there be some flag set when a person manually makes changes to
the menu? I leave my menus fully automatic, never making any manual
changes.
Cheers,
Steven
On Fri, Oct 26, 2007 at 11:20:57PM -0400, Simón Ruiz wrote:
> I dunno, I'll double-check when I get home. I DID go through an
> upgrade on our "Media Center", and on Sarah's laptop...It looks like
> you're right on the money there, the old "Desktop Effects" dialog is
> still present. Poo.
>
> Simón
>
> On 10/23/07, Joe Auty <joe@netmusician.org> wrote:
> > Simón Ruiz wrote:
> > > Right, on a clean Gutsy install Desktop Effects options are just a
> > > panel in the Appearance dialog, not their own dialog.
> > >
> >
> > Hmmmm... maybe when you do an upgrade, old panels are not specifically
> > removed and/or hidden?
>
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I have had issues with cut and paste working between machines and
certain applications like Thunderbird. For some reason, if I copy on
one machine then try to paste into thunderbird on another, it doesn't
take, but if I paste it into something like an editor on that other
machine, then copy it and paste it into thunderbird, then it works.
Mark
On Sat, Oct 27, 2007 at 05:37:40AM GMT, Joe Auty [joe@netmusician.org] said the following:
> I'm using Synergy/QuickSynergy to control my Ubuntu computer from my
> Powerbook, but the keyboard mapping thing has me thoroughly confused.
>
> It looks like Synergy has some keyboard layout options, and on top of
> this Gnome has plenty too... For starters, what are the meta, super,
> windows, alt, and third level chooser keys? What would be the best way
> to map the control key in Ubuntu to either my Apple or Control key, and
> the alt key to my alt/option key? Should I focus on configuring Synergy
> or Gnome? Do you know whether I can get QuickSynergy to use a particular
> configuration file? I like it because it gives my wife an easy way to
> turn on/off Synergy as she needs to.
>
> If somebody would be interesting in giving me some quick orientation
> here, I'd be grateful!
>
>
> --
> Joe Auty
> NetMusician: web publishing software for musicians
> http://www.netmusician.org
> joe@netmusician.org
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>
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It looks like Synergy has some keyboard layout options, and on top of
this Gnome has plenty too... For starters, what are the meta, super,
windows, alt, and third level chooser keys? What would be the best way
to map the control key in Ubuntu to either my Apple or Control key, and
the alt key to my alt/option key? Should I focus on configuring Synergy
or Gnome? Do you know whether I can get QuickSynergy to use a particular
configuration file? I like it because it gives my wife an easy way to
turn on/off Synergy as she needs to.
If somebody would be interesting in giving me some quick orientation
here, I'd be grateful!
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Simón
On 10/23/07, Joe Auty <joe@netmusician.org> wrote:
> Simón Ruiz wrote:
> > Right, on a clean Gutsy install Desktop Effects options are just a
> > panel in the Appearance dialog, not their own dialog.
> >
>
> Hmmmm... maybe when you do an upgrade, old panels are not specifically
> removed and/or hidden?
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Mark Krenz wrote:
> This is cool. I found a NeXT N1000 cube lying on a pallet yesterday
> at Cook. I felt like I had just made a major archeological find. It
> had been moved around over the years and eventually found its way out of
> a closet and onto a pallet. It turns out it had an interesting history
> in how it got here. It used to be the former CEO's computer when he was
> an engineer a long time ago.
>
> Unfortunately, it has proprietary video and keyboard ports so I can't
> boot it up at the moment.
>
Hi Mark,
I know there's at least one person on the list with the required parts now
who might let you test your new cube =)
Sad that I'm leaving now, maybe we could have started BNUG. It could be
kind of like a Mac club, but our socks wouldn't have to be argyle, and we'd
have more than one mouse button. =)
- -Dave
- --
| Dave Monnier - dmonnier@ren-isac.net |
|
http://nicholas.ren-isac.net/dmonnier/
|
| Principal Security Engineer, REN-ISAC http://www.ren-isac.net/ |
| 24x7 Watch Desk: +1(317)278-6630, ren-isac@ren-isac.net |
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Unfortunately, it has proprietary video and keyboard ports so I can't
boot it up at the moment.
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Hmmmm... maybe when you do an upgrade, old panels are not specifically
removed and/or hidden?
> Simón
>
> On 10/20/07, Joe Auty <joe@netmusician.org> wrote:
>> Hmmm.... I have both Screens and Graphics as well as Desktop Effects.
>> What you say makes sense, because I was thinking that the fact that
>> there are desktop effect options in Appearance -> Visual *and* a
>> separate Desktop Effects control panel was a rather dumb usability decision.
>>
>> I guess Desktop Effects are basically enabled/disabled in the Appearance
>> panel now, right?
>
> _______________________________________________
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Simón
On 10/20/07, Joe Auty <joe@netmusician.org> wrote:
> Hmmm.... I have both Screens and Graphics as well as Desktop Effects.
> What you say makes sense, because I was thinking that the fact that
> there are desktop effect options in Appearance -> Visual *and* a
> separate Desktop Effects control panel was a rather dumb usability decision.
>
> I guess Desktop Effects are basically enabled/disabled in the Appearance
> panel now, right?
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812.330.6156 (w) 812.330.6212 (f)
----- Original Message -----
From: IU Multimedia User Group News <IUMMUGNEWS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
To: IUMMUGNEWS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU <IUMMUGNEWS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
Sent: Mon Oct 22 16:57:57 2007
Subject: OT: Bloomington Geek Dinner Group
I thought I would pass this on to everyone. I know nothing more than what is here. I personally like networking events. I'd probably attend if I didn't have another obligation.
Bob
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some geek types local to Bloomington are organizing a dinner group, an inaugural event to be held Oct. 23rd, 7PM at Max's Place. If you'd care to join us that would be great, and please pass it on to anyone else you know who might be interested.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
____________________________________________________
Bob Flynn
Associate Director of Information Systems Technology
Graduate Accounting Programs and
Information Systems Graduate Programs
Indiana University Kelley School of Business
1275 E. Tenth Street, Suite 2000 [office] 812/855-5509
Bloomington, IN 47405-1701 [fax] 812/856-4123
http://kelley.iu.edu/gap/ <http://kelley.iu.edu/gap/> and http://kelley.iu.edu/isgp/ <http://kelley.iu.edu/isgp/>
[email] reflynn@indiana.edu <mailto:reflynn@indiana.edu>
Manager, Indiana University Multimedia Users Group
http://iummug.indiana.edu <http://iummug.indiana.edu/>
____________________________________________________
Anyway, I'm pleased as can be that people are responding to my
arguments with more and more statistics!!! this is not my typical
experience. Blug is great. I love nerds. :)
I'm going to incorporate several items that I wanted to respond to in
one email, rather than responding to each of them individually...
On Fri, Oct 12, 2007 at 1:28PM -0400, "Simón A. Ruiz" wrote:
>Wait a minute.
>
>Dig a little deeper and check out:
>http://www.industcards.com/top-100-pt-1.htm
>No 1 - Itaipu 14,750 MW
>and http://www.industcards.com/top-100-pt-4.htm
>No 100 - Cordemais 3,185 MW
>
>We're not looking at 25 more average power plants (thus 1% increase
>in world power consumption), we're looking at 25 more Itaipus, which
>would be roughly 370 MW, roughly a little less than the combined
>output of the rest of the top 100 power plants on the planet.
You make an excellent point, I was naively assuming that power plant
output was roughly equivalent, and that's clearly not the case.
However, you're arguing it too far in the other direction (see
below)...
>And keep in mind that as we bring electricity to the parts of the
>world that still lack it, they're not ONLY going to be using it for
>computing, that figure only reflects the chunk of the new needed
>electricity that computers will be sucking on.
One of my points is that additional power plants, per se, is not
necessarily all that bad. Indiana has at least 15 power plants, and
even if they aren't as high-power as many others, they exist here
without nagatively impacting quality of life all that much (I only
know where a couple of them are) even though they are about mostly
using the dirtiest power generation technology still in operation in
the western world.
Put another way, one of my main points is this: a lot of
environmentalists take an attitude of "every bit of development is
bad", I look at it more as "we want a very good cost/benefit ratio for
any development that we do." Even if my numbers were off, I still
like the cost/benefit of computing.
>Only 17 power plants currently in the world generate more than 5MW.
I'm quite sure you meant to say "5GW" or equivalently "5,000MW" in
that sentence. Simple mistake, but three orders of magnitude really
changes the equations. :)
>Indiana and Ohio together wouldn't make a dent in that figure.
I agree that my gee-whiz claim about Indiana and Ohio was wrong
(although, I'm not even questioning the original assertion (as Mark
has) that 25 Itaipu's would be necessary to double the world's
computers). However, I disagree that it wouldn't make a dent.
I went through these two pages
http://www.industcards.com/st-coal-usa-in.htm
http://www.industcards.com/st-coal-usa-oh.htm
and added up all of the power ratings of all the plants. The total
was 25,885 MW, or about 1.75 Itaipus. Using the "25 Itaipus to double
the world's computers" formula, this means that the COAL FUELED plants
in Indiana and Ohio provide about 7% of energy required to run the
world's computers. So, even knowing that this only includes coal fuel
plants, my previous assertion was about an order of magnitude off. I
stand corrected. But, 7% is definitely a dent in my book.
On Sat, Oct 13, 2007 at 12:10:36AM -0400, "Simón A. Ruiz" wrote:
>Unless it turns out that computers are in fact feeding power into the
>electrical grid, there's really no way to argue against coming up with
>strategies to deliver computing with less power.
Here's my basic argument: I think it's fair to assume that cars use at
least 20x as much power in general use than computers do, and
typically generate more pollution per unit energy. So, add up cars
and computers and I'm seeing a pie chart showing that 95%+ of the
environmental impact coming from cars. Then you're saying "let's make
computers more efficient to benefit the earth" and what I'm saying
back is "ok, but if we somehow got computers to run without
electricity, we'd make at best a 5% improvement. I think our energy
is better spent working on a 6% gain in fuel efficiency for
automobiles." And, when something like a 50% gain in fuel efficiency
can be had for simply driving a small car vs. a big one, it's hard for
me to get too excited about computers.
And then, there's refrigerators and air conditioners...
>I started thinking about this stuff as I considered the possibility of
>building a completely power-independent home (and solar power seems the
>way to go). I'm a total computer geek, and with the number of computers
>I have now, they're a major chunk of my energy needs.
Don't forget wind!! :)
>Mark Krenz wrote:
>>David Ernst wrote:
>> Says that a ford escort uses 110 horsepower = 82,026 watts. So,
>> driving a Ford Escort (my old one used to get about 33 mpg (need I
>> point out that the escort is not among the highest performance
>> vehicles ever designed?)) for ONE MINUTE is roughly the same power
>> consumption of leaving a desktop computer idle (at 60 watts) for ONE
>> DAY. The twelve hours of driving I'm planning on this weekend to
>> visit my parents will the amount of energy of two years of leaving
>> my
>> desktop turned on 24/7. And cars are mobile things with difficult
>> emissions control problems. The computers' new power plants could
>> be
>> anything from wind farms to fuel cells.
>
> This is why I responded to your email. I realize that obviously
>the power output of a car that is turned on is not 0 watts when its
>in park or even when you are coasting. Obviously, its consuming
>fuel. But its also obviously not producing 82000 watts all the time
>when its running. However, it wouldn't be a direct relationship
>between the rpms of the engine and the watts it produces. So I'm not
>sure you could say something like when you run the engine at 1/4 of
>full throttle that it would produce only 82000 watts. I agree with
>your comparison though, cars do use a lot more power than computers.
Well, how about we look at it this way: in a year, I typically drive
somewhere around 10,000 miles, and I get about 35 mpg. That's about
286 gal (about 2 fillups a month... sounds about right). I'm seeing
stats for KWh/gal of gasoline (including here)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/science/units.html
at about 36. So I use roughly one KWh per mile when I drive my Saturn
on the highway. That's 10MWh per year.
If we go with the 60W idle computer assumption we've been using, a
year of computer idle is:
60W * 24hours/day * 365days/year =~ 0.53MWh per year. So, again
roughly, I consume about 20 times as much energy driving my Saturn as
I do letting my desktop run 24/7. The easiest way for us all to gain
efficiency in this model would be to be like normal people and run our
computers only 8 hours per day. But, let's not get crazy now. :)
My basic drive, as stated above, is to focus on the best benefits on
conservation. Seeing SUVs all around and air conditioners set to 68F
all summer long makes focusing on computers efficiency seem like
nickel-and-dime stuff compared with the big power-consuming machines
in the world. Obviously, Simon is correct that every bit we save is
another bit saved, but I'd rather focus on the big problems than get
worked up over the thin slices of the pie, especially when the
difference is so stark. And, I doubt that the typical third world
person is going to be more excited about a computer than they would be
about a car or an air conditioner as their quality of life improves.
David
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Hmmm.... I have both Screens and Graphics as well as Desktop Effects.
What you say makes sense, because I was thinking that the fact that
there are desktop effect options in Appearance -> Visual *and* a
separate Desktop Effects control panel was a rather dumb usability decision.
I guess Desktop Effects are basically enabled/disabled in the Appearance
panel now, right?
> Just a thought.
>
> Simón
>
> On 10/19/07, Joe Auty <joe@netmusician.org> wrote:
>> Joe Auty wrote:
>>> I'm starting to think that my initial assessment was probably wrong.
>>>
>>> I'm missing my "Desktop Effects" control panel here on my work machine,
>>> but this is probably because my stupid ATI card here doesn't support
>>> them. This is in part what threw me, I figured that it was removed from
>>> Ubuntu altogether...
>
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Is your "Screens and Graphics" control panel still missing?
It sounds like your main menu options haven't quite moved over to the
new one, though that might simply be because of your alacarte setting.
Try looking through the "Main Menu" control panel (or run "alacarte")
to see if you can activate the Screens and Graphics option and
deactivate the Desktop Effects option.
Just a thought.
Simón
On 10/19/07, Joe Auty <joe@netmusician.org> wrote:
> Joe Auty wrote:
> > I'm starting to think that my initial assessment was probably wrong.
> >
> > I'm missing my "Desktop Effects" control panel here on my work machine,
> > but this is probably because my stupid ATI card here doesn't support
> > them. This is in part what threw me, I figured that it was removed from
> > Ubuntu altogether...
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Okay, as it turns out my Desktop Effects were simply disabled...
Everything is back up and running now. A couple of apps will need an
update from the looks of it, just as Avant, and the MythTV frontend
still doesn't work well with with compiz, but I'm back up and running
again...
>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
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I'm starting to think that my initial assessment was probably wrong.
I'm missing my "Desktop Effects" control panel here on my work machine,
but this is probably because my stupid ATI card here doesn't support
them. This is in part what threw me, I figured that it was removed from
Ubuntu altogether...
On my home machine, the upgraded machine in question, Compiz was not
automatically enabled. I haven't yet checked to see whether I can enable
Desktop Effects using the control panel on my home machine, because I
was in a rush and was thinking foolishly that I could do this over VNC
from work. Doing this via VNC I get "composite extension is
unavailable", but I'm pretty certain that this is because I'm using VNC.
Perhaps the VNC servers will have to rethink about the best way to
provide VNC service on compiz enabled machines now? Obviously, having
two different environments (i.e. a Metacity environment for VNC, Compiz
for local user) is not really ideal since some apps don't work properly
under Metacity now...
At any rate, I'll let you guys know if my problem is solved simply by
enabling Desktop Effects. Perhaps they were disabled because I upgraded
my NVidia card through Envy under Fiesty?
According to apt-get there are no packages awaiting updates, and nothing
to configure doing a dpkg --configure -a either. I'm hoping that my
confusion stems from what I've described above and that my upgrade did
actually go okay...
>
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This isn't really the horrible problem that it seems right now. These
sorts of things happen and it is typically straight-forward to resume.
You are right. You have a partial install. However all the initial
upgrade processes were run, so you should be able to complete the
install, just like any other interrupted installation.
There may be some caveats. When this happened to me for a previous upgrade
the init->upstart migration didn't quite work. Your best bet is to check
the docs to see if there are any potential issues. In most cases, though
it just picks up where it left off and keeps on running. (When this happened
to me with the Gutsy Beta, it picked up just fine, so I wouldn't expect
problems.)
This is to say, use standard packaging tools. Synaptic, Aptitude, or
whatever you're familiar with. If the package management system is
left in the middle, you may be asked to run 'dpkg --configure -a'
or something to straighten the system out before normal package
installation can resume. (The package management system should inform
you of what you need to do.)
Cheers,
Steven Black
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Upon rebooting, update manager is not reporting any updates, yet Compiz
is not loaded, I'm missing the Screens and Graphics control panel, and I
still have the Desktop Effects control panel. This is what leads me to
believe that I have an incomplete reinstall.
So, what is the best way to do a reinstall of Gutsy considering the fact
that the net install is no longer an option in Update Manager or via
doing a "do-release-upgrade" in the command line? I obviously do not
want to reformat my drive and start over again.
Is there anyway to force a net reinstall? Should I try the alternate CD?
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:-) It will accept imports from Gnumeric files. Pretty cool. And
you can export to Gnumeric too. I tried making the same spreadsheet
using just their tools and it doesn't seem possible to do some of the
more complex graphing features. But if you upload a gnumeric
spreadsheet, it preserves most of those features. The ratio graph
didn't preserve its lines properly. Oh well. This is the one I tried
to make manually:
http://www.editgrid.com/user/suso/Intel_Multi-core_Server_Processor_Price_Analysis
Its neat that it updates the spreadsheet in real time for the people
viewing it. And you can chat. Web OS here we come.
Mark
On Wed, Oct 17, 2007 at 02:29:57PM GMT, Mark Krenz [mark@slugbug.org] said the following:
>
> Yes, I think Gnumeric is much better than OOo Calc. Gnumeric was part
> of an effort to make a suite of office applications for Gnome. AbiWord
> was also part of that. Gnumeric doesn't make it as straightforward to
> make a graph, but once you figure out the graph tree structure, you can
> do quite a bit. Like I just revised the Price per GHz/core graph so
> that it includes the ratio graph with a second y-axis at a different
> scale. It took me a bit to figure out how to associate the second plot
> with the y-axis2.
>
> Appearently http://www.editgrid.com/ uses Gnumeric as a backend or as
> a code base. Looks pretty neat.
>
> Mark
>
> On Wed, Oct 17, 2007 at 01:37:00PM GMT, Simón Ruiz [simon.a.ruiz@gmail.com] said the following:
> > That's pretty neat. The main (real) reason our teachers don't want to
> > give up the MS Office is that OOo Calc doesn't do more than multi-line
> > graphs. It looks like Gnumeric wins soundly on that account.
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
> --
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Appearently http://www.editgrid.com/ uses Gnumeric as a backend or as
a code base. Looks pretty neat.
Mark
On Wed, Oct 17, 2007 at 01:37:00PM GMT, Simón Ruiz [simon.a.ruiz@gmail.com] said the following:
> That's pretty neat. The main (real) reason our teachers don't want to
> give up the MS Office is that OOo Calc doesn't do more than multi-line
> graphs. It looks like Gnumeric wins soundly on that account.
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Just wanted to show that Gnumeric can make decent spreadsheets.
Sorry about the color scheme.
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Oops!
Thanks for catching my mistake, Michael.
I should have been more careful.
Simón
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FYI, We're having the release party at the Claddagh Irish Pub at 3835
East 96th Street in Indianapolis (there are 3 Claddagh's in Metro Indy).
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This is intended for those of you on other lists who don't already
know, but I'm copying the LoCo list as well.
I just wanted to let you all know that the Ubuntu Indiana Local
Community Team will be getting together this coming Saturday, 20th of
October at Claddagh Irish Pub in Indianapolis at 7:10pm to celebrate
the release of Ubunty 7.10, the Gutsy Gibbon.
For those that haven't played with it, the Gutsy Gibbon is a big
monkey jump forward on several fronts including Compiz Fusion by
default where possible, automatic printer setup, and setting up
Broadcom wireless with the simple checking of a box.
It's a leap ahead with a courageous stance on features that had been
judged too gutsy before now. They're solid enough to make it to prime
time now, and they've got the chance to hardy up in time for the
upcoming Long Term Release, Ubuntu 8.04, the Hardy Heron.
You are all invited to join us at Claddagh in Indy to celebrate!
Simón
P.S. As a blatant bribe, I'll be passing out some shiny, metal
"Powered by Ubuntu" stickers—courtesy of the Ohio Local Community
Team—to everybody who attends. They're real pretty and shiny, would
make a good replacement for that shiny, metal sticker advertising a
legacy OS that came on your box without your asking for it. Bring an
Ubuntu powered laptop (Gutsy powered or not) and get it branded on the
spot, before I divvy out the stickers.
P.P.S. And I heard a rumor (completely uncorroborated, as I haven't
yet discussed with involved parties about this) about some black open
source related T-shirts from the Ohio LinuxFest that might show up and
get distributed freely at the party......
P.P.P.S. LoCo team members that are in other Linux-related groups,
you're encouraged to publicize our Gutsy Release Party to them, and
forward on my bribe. The more the merrier!
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I'm speaking at a higher level than specifics. The fact is we're not
going to get to the exact figures, and even if we could find perfectly
precise figures, I can't see them modifying my point, unless they turn
out to actually contradict me. They would only put a more concrete
figure on the magnitude of the benefits of developing more efficient
computing practices.
Unless it turns out that computers are in fact feeding power into the
electrical grid, there's really no way to argue against coming up with
strategies to deliver computing with less power.
> I found the "Energy efficiency" section of this article interesting:
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_power_supply
>
> And this:
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency
>
> Computers are much more efficient than I expected. 93% efficiency is
> pretty impressive. So why are we making such a big deal about it? It
> seems that as long as we use our computers for useful things while they
> are on (like writing this email), its not really all that wasteful.
a) 93%-efficient power supplies are available, but they are generally
70-75% at peak according to your article, though this figure only
applies at 50-75% load.
Anything less than or more than that drops this figure, more significant
on the low-load side than the high-load side.
So an idling computer is in fact the least efficient from the
mathematically perspective as well as the fact that it's basically a
power-sucking paperweight.
b) However, let's pretend computers are 100% power efficient.
In this magical world where the power supply is basically just
superconducting power from the grid into the box, it's still more
efficient to write your e-mail on a box that draws less than 10W than
one that must draw 60W if it's staring at the wall (though honestly, I'd
be surprised if an idle computer only drew 60W...I'll have to borrow a
kill-a-watt from work to measure this stuff). You're spending less
energy to get the exact same result.
What is your return on investment for that extra wattage? Wobbly
windows? ;-)
> So in this way, servers are generally not wasting much energy. Its
> obvious that people understand this though because the desktop is where
> all the power saving technologies are like turning off the monitor, hard
> drive sleep, etc.
Servers are the most efficient part of our computer use habits,
depending on how you structure it. This is why my ideal includes big
servers back-ends with the small workstations front-ends.
> Ok, I've rambled on long enough. Scott Blaydes could tell you about
> his dream of having a data center that is solar powered though. :-)
It's definitely doable, and economically advantageous in the long term.
He'll need to figure out how to make enough money with it to pay for the
solar panels in the short-middle term.
He'll also need to carefully calculate the "bang for his buck" of each
power-using component in his data center, as I've been talking about.
He'll want to make sure that every Watt he's spending (and thus every
square inch of expensive solar paneling he needs to have up) is bringing
him more money than it's costing him.
His dream highlights my very points.
I started thinking about this stuff as I considered the possibility of
building a completely power-independent home (and solar power seems the
way to go). I'm a total computer geek, and with the number of computers
I have now, they're a major chunk of my energy needs.
*yawn*
I'm going to bed, ya'll, have a great night!
Simón
P.S. Incidentally, I don't intend to say our computers today need to no
longer be used, throwing them away would have equally if not more
disturbing ecological consequences. I'm simply saying tomorrows
computers can be compacts, motorcycles, bicyles, with the same power as
today's SUVs.
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Actually, that's a pretty cool site.
I'm sorry to be a fact Nazi in this, but I think that if we're talking
about saving the world from predicted environmental disaster based on
scientific research, then we should use more accurate statistics.
> Suppose we wanted to double the number of automobiles in the world.
> We'd likely be looking at something like an 80% increase in power
> consumption. That's a rough estimate based on zero research, but
> whatever the correct number is, it's going to be way way way over 1%.
> And a car takes WAY more energy when it's in use!
The difference is that cars are based on converting something that has
energy in it (Petroleum). Not using energy from a power plant. Never
thought of it this way before, but cars are like mini power plants.
> Says that a ford escort uses 110 horsepower = 82,026 watts. So,
> driving a Ford Escort (my old one used to get about 33 mpg (need I
> point out that the escort is not among the highest performance
> vehicles ever designed?)) for ONE MINUTE is roughly the same power
> consumption of leaving a desktop computer idle (at 60 watts) for ONE
> DAY. The twelve hours of driving I'm planning on this weekend to
> visit my parents will the amount of energy of two years of leaving my
> desktop turned on 24/7. And cars are mobile things with difficult
> emissions control problems. The computers' new power plants could be
> anything from wind farms to fuel cells.
This is why I responded to your email. I realize that obviously the
power output of a car that is turned on is not 0 watts when its in park
or even when you are coasting. Obviously, its consuming fuel. But its
also obviously not producing 82000 watts all the time when its running.
However, it wouldn't be a direct relationship between the rpms of the
engine and the watts it produces. So I'm not sure you could say
something like when you run the engine at 1/4 of full throttle that it
would produce only 82000 watts. I agree with your comparison though,
cars do use a lot more power than computers.
Actually, I think the most effective way to conserve power in regards
to your home computer is to keep them away from your thermostat.
Computers generate quite a bit of heat these days. We have two story
house and the office used to be upstairs with three computers there at
least one was on most of the time. The thermostat was also on that
floor. When I moved the computers downstairs this year and the
temperature in that room dropped 5 degrees F. The extra heat upstairs
in the summer was causing the thermostat to continue to drive the AC and
make the downstairs colder than it should have been. Now with the
computers downstairs, the temperature is more consistent in the house
and probably it helps more in the winter since the heat will rise
through the house a bit. There should be some scientific study to back
this up.
I found the "Energy efficiency" section of this article interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_power_supply
And this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency
Computers are much more efficient than I expected. 93% efficiency is
pretty impressive. So why are we making such a big deal about it? It
seems that as long as we use our computers for useful things while they
are on (like writing this email), its not really all that wasteful.
So in this way, servers are generally not wasting much energy. Its
obvious that people understand this though because the desktop is where
all the power saving technologies are like turning off the monitor, hard
drive sleep, etc.
Ok, I've rambled on long enough. Scott Blaydes could tell you about
his dream of having a data center that is solar powered though. :-)
--
Mark Krenz
Bloomington Linux Users Group
http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/
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On 10/12/07, ben lipkowitz <fenn@sdf.lonestar.org> wrote:
> Who wants to fund my fusion research? I promise to make it open source...
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Fusion, the energy of tomorrow's future?
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Who wants to fund my fusion research? I promise to make it open source...
So, any process can enlist neighbor's help? Like, say I opened 2,000
separate copies of the OOXML standard definition at the same time, it
would offload the processor requirements?
I was under the impression that it only worked with applications that
were specifically written for it to work with.
That's pretty awesome!
Simón
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> Looking at it another way, apparently Indiana and Ohio together
> produce roughly enough electricity to power all of the worlds
> computers. Probably a little bit short, but... these two states are a
> sliver of the world's land area, and the air here is still clean even
> though we're burning a lot of dirty coal in old plants.
Wait a minute.
Dig a little deeper and check out:
http://www.industcards.com/top-100-pt-1.htm
No 1 - Itaipu 14,750 MW
and http://www.industcards.com/top-100-pt-4.htm
No 100 - Cordemais 3,185 MW
We're not looking at 25 more average power plants (thus 1% increase in
world power consumption), we're looking at 25 more Itaipus, which would
be roughly 370 MW, roughly a little less than the combined output of the
rest of the top 100 power plants on the planet.
And keep in mind that as we bring electricity to the parts of the world
that still lack it, they're not ONLY going to be using it for computing,
that figure only reflects the chunk of the new needed electricity that
computers will be sucking on.
Only 17 power plants currently in the world generate more than 5MW.
Indiana and Ohio together wouldn't make a dent in that figure.
Notice, the top three power plants are all hydroelectric. Itaipu, Three
Gorges, and Guri (incidentally in Venezuela). But we've pretty much set
up all the big hydroelectric dams we can, as far as I can see. Any
reasonable location for a big hydroelectric plant has already been
jumped on or ruled out.
So.
We can look at how to generate all that extra energy in an
environmentally friendly (read: no more carbon output) way.
We can look at how to make our existing power plants less
environmentally offensive (read: carbon sequestration, etc.).
We can look at how to reduce the amount of power we're currently using.
We can look at making future power-using products more and more efficient.
In point of fact we NEED to do ALL of that, if we care at all about what
kind of world our children, and those of the rest of the human race,
will inherit from us.
Not addressing the issue from every angle is tantamount to mass suicide.
> If we want to conserve energy, we're much better off focusing on
> vehicles than computers. Meanwhile, we're probably all drawing more
> power for lighting than we are for computing (60W?!? I've got
> individual light bulbs that draw that much! (though fewer and fewer of
> them)).
Modern first-world energy-consumption patterns are not scalable or
sustainable is the basic point.
Just because computers are less offensive than cars doesn't absolve us
from addressing the computer angle. Every single Watt per person counts.
I'm a computer geek, so I look at the computer angle, and I expect the
car geeks out there to look at the car angle, and the plane geeks to
look it the plane angle, etc.
> Having said all of that, I love the idea of thin clients, and I see it
> as a minor tragedy that they aren't more popular. But, I would focus
> on deploying them in business environments. Gone would be the days of
> people wondering whether to save to their computer or to the
> server... and if their computer broke, just give 'em a new one, have
> them log in, and they're right back in business... Save power? All
> the better!
Thin-client are definitely going to be the norm in business
environments, but is I believe they'd also be useful in the homes of
non-enthusiasts in areas where the ISP can have a nice fat pipe to the
home. An apartment complex, for instance, would be an ideal place for
this sort of thing.
I think the main problem keeping thin-clients from being a big thing is
the market dynamics.
Linux can change the market dynamics.
It may have to be indirectly here. It may have to become the standard
everywhere else to demonstrate it's viability before American industry
even considers jumping the Microsoft full-workstation-per-person/Hummer
ship.
> David
Thanks for your thoughts!
Simón
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:-)
On Fri, Oct 12, 2007 at 02:41:01PM GMT, Josh Goodman [jogoodman@gmail.com] said the following:
> It was Condor. I used to use it to run some bioinformatics apps that
> had been deployed on it. I say was because as far as I understand it
> the cluster was end of lifed a year or so ago. The reason I was given
> was that when the windows firewall was rolled out to the student
> clusters they lost the ability to use Condor/SMBL messaging to manage
> jobs/nodes. The student desktop admins didn't want to open up ports
> or something along those lines.
>
> Maybe it is still alive in some other capacity but the public site
> that you used to access it through is no longer in service:
> https://condor.ussg.indiana.edu/ and all the apps that I used to use
> on it are available on AVIDD or Big Red.
>
> Josh
>
>
>
> On 10/12/07, Matt Standish <mstandish@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Doable and done. Matt Liggett, a former sysadmin at Kiva and the guy
> > > > who wrote the original knowledge base at IU, was working on a program
> > > > for IU that would slave the idle time of desktops into one giant super
> > > > computer. I'm not sure how far he got with it, but I've heard of other
> > > > places doing this before.
> > >
> > > Is that the OpenMosix project?
> > >
> > > As I understood it, it only worked with specific software. You couldn't,
> > > say, offload any old video encoding or (place random mundane
> > > high-processor-time task here) job yet.
> >
> > No it's not OpenMosix.. It may be condor (someone from my group will
> > chime in if I am wrong (At 1:30 I am sure I am wrong :) )) and it can
> > run video rendering. Sorta like Seti@home for clustering... I believe
> > it has been rewritten since Liggett was involved but the same purpose
> > exists.
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