FSP 1.1

f1 Indy

Back in August 2002 , I toured the Indy Formula One course
and facilities. Saw the paddock, media tower, garages, and
suites. Took a lap, spun my wheels on grid, tested the ABS,
and rumbled over the curbs.

Conclusion: Indy is in great shape and ready for a race.

Some particular illustrated notes below.

MINI in full competition trim (direct from SCCA Pro Solo) is noticed.

A closer look at SCCA sponsors.

Tires: Falken Azenis 215-45-16

Cooper S comes by.

Cooper S goes by.

I take a lap.

Backmarkers !

Looking back. Love the sunroof and Nikon Coolpix twistbody.

ob BMW Compact e36/5 318ti. I am at Indy thanks to Tarun of the 318ti list.

The pit wall is wired.

Really wired.

The garage is wired for an international array of plus.

Friendly uniformed staff await the mixer.

Tired: swooshy logos; wired: winged logos.

good eats at CO

Soon to be submitted to AirlineMeals.Net:

Continental Breakfast 1.

Continental Breakfast 2.

Continental landing screen: real, not simulator.

Continental dinner in President's lounge.

Sunday Papers

A couple of stories caught my eye:

Science
Is even nurture an outgrowth of nature, then? Is all of it,
even culture itself, reducible to evolutionary biology?

I prefer the word unification to reduction.
Steven Pinker.

Culture and Music

I had a whole new tool chest of things that no one had ruined yet
explains Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. [salon.com]

Culture and Politics

Democratic candidates face a cultural problem in these
[rural, southern] districts; they must overcome the perception
that they're in league with effete urban liberals.

'Rural white guys think we're all a bunch of wusses', complains
self-described Bubba Coordinator David Mudcat Saunders.
[NYT.com]

Update, STL --> SFO

Met various STL folk last week; summary of : St Louisans say the darnedest things; others took pictures.
Then I flew home to SFO. This weekend, I sold the precious BMW, and I hope the new owner enjoys all its ///M-technik splendor as much as I have. I just had to drive Palomares one last time. Well, three last times, actually.
Back to STL tomorrow, another 6900 Continental Onepass Elite for me.

ism

We don't know when the trains will start running because
the schedule is so precise.

Train system experts said they can't set a precise start-up date
because of extensive testing required for the computer controls that
keep trains on schedule and spaced apart.[*]

[BATN note: Opening date was scheduled for "late 2001" in 1998.
True to form, the extension is nearly 100% over initial budget
and well over a year behind schedule.

Meanwhile, Madrid's Metro extensions, for example, have had no
problems commissioning computerized signaling systems and entering
service ahead of schedule.]

Prices could vary with location

The Contra Contra Times reports that an emission trading program
that allows industries to earn credits for reducing emissions has increased
local pollution level in Contra Costa County.

If Contra Costa County is overly burdened, the trading program
could either:

1) cap the number of credits per year allowed to be be use in
Contra Costa Co.

2) decrease the relative value of permits in Contra Costa Co,
eg a permit that generally permits 1 tonne of emissions
would if used in Contra Costa Co. allow only 0.5 tonnes of
emissions.

At one time, the Bay Area air district adjusted how many
credits a company needed based on where the credits came
from. If a Contra Costa company wanted to expand its power
plant or refinery, it would need more credits if they came
from San Jose, and fewer credits if they came from a
neighboring industry.

Mike Taugher covers the environment and energy. Reach him at
925-943-8257 or mtaugher@cctimes.com

So Good, So Bad Amtrak

1. Things are going well, we have success,
and we need to support a successful system.

2. Things are going poorly, and need help,
and we need to support a needy, insufficient system.

These are the two faces of Amtrak.

0911 requiem

The dead and the guilty

Simon Schama, professor of history and art history at
Columbia University, New York writes in The Guardian on the
questions Americans should be asking on the anniversary
of September 11.

Meaningful messages

Considering the sample schedule below and the message below,
would you conclude:

a) Ticket sales after train #06 will continue.

b) Since trains #02 and #04 are before train #06, there are
no ticket salesbefore trains #02 or #04 either.

c) None of the above

FREMONT TICKET SALES

Due to an amended contract with our ticket vendor in Fremont, ticket sales
before #06's arrival have been suspended at that station. The change went
into effect on September 01, but we wanted to make one more announcement to
avoid any confusion. For further information, please contact the ACE
Ticketing Department at (209) 468-5660.

It's better to tell your customers how you can help them than
how you can't:

You can buy a ticket any time between 5:30 AM and 6:00 PM,
before or after any of trains #01, #02, #03, #04, or #05.

Refs: message and actual schedule.

privacy, economics of design and beauty: books to read

Virginia Postrel talks with David Womack about her new book,
The Age of Look and Feel, a follow-up to the excellent
The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict over Creativity,
Enterprise and Progress.

Gong Szeto interviews Michael Benedikt, author of For an Architecture of Reality,

Deconstructing the Kimbell, Cyberspace: First Steps, and the
forthcoming, A General Theory of Value.

Translucent Database by Peter Wayner.

A translucent database uses cryptographic methods like hash functions
and public key cryptography to mathematically protect information so that it
cannot be wrongly divulged -- not even to a crooked database administrator.

Translucent databases provide for unparalleled protection of sensitive
information, be that information personal, corporate, or academic.

Autocross season finale

And the MINIs raced.

Bugs, trade magazines.

Posted a bug in slashcode.

If enduser selects too many 'Customize Slashboxes' entries, they get an error
message saying too many entries selected. The max number of options is not
presented to the user.

Trade magazines are running rather light fluffy pieces on information
architecture. IA is typically more about finding organizing concepts
than about finding Ten hot tips and tricks for better PowerPoint Flash,
so dumbing down the content when writing for a general audience is common.

Progress Paralysis: Eight steps to get your Web site moving again

by Peter Merholz in New Architect.
The Culture of Usability: How to spend less and get more from your usability-testing program

by Janice Fraser in New Architect.
Information architecture: carrying out a classification situation analysis by Gerry McGovern.

Classification Workshops by Gerry McGovern.

Pickle Jar Theory, by [IMG] (sic) at alistapart.

Better articles were the more substantive Taking A Content Inventory
by Janice Crotty Frase, also in New Architect; and the pithy and on target

Web classification is essential by Gerry McGovern.

How to argue when facts and logic are against you.

How to argue when facts and logic are against you,
another installment in the series.

When presented with authoritative evidence, backed up by
references and citations, ask,

Do you always let other people do the thinking for you?

Also of note:

Phil Agre's tale of discovering talking points:

The arguments were, in common parlance, rhetorical "ammo".  

The metaphor is apt: ammo doesn't have to make sense; it just 

has to disable or kill.

Public relations reading list.

web golf

web golf, noun.

The aspiration to minimize the number of links (clicks) to
get from here to there.

See perl golf, programming contests to find the shortest
program capable of executing a specified task.

Reality: bus spotting

bus spotting

train spotting

Business ethics

Doing things you don't like, or doing things you oppose:
which is more unethical ?

Metropolis' designer's ethics scale.

Anderson gets interesting.

Most company re-brandings from English names to nonsense words,
eg, from Western Electric to Lucent and Avaya
struck me as silly ways to through away decades of good will.

But one lucky company, Anderson Consulting had the fortune
to rename itself to Accenture before the meltdown
of its like-named accounting firm.

Accenture's branding campaign is still silly though. For example,
one print ad states:

Chinese to be the number one Internet language by the
year 2007; now it gets interesting.

The implication is that Accenture has the vision and unique capabilities
that are essential to this exciting, yet demanding, future.

Update: 2003 Jan 23

alternate link.

For print ads from this campaign, see back issues of from year 2002 of
The Economist, or Harvard Business Review.

blog spam: splog or blam ?

blam, noun.

The new phenomena of jamming gratuitous links to a blog
into the comments of other blogs.
synonyms: splog.

Pave the world, Santa Clara Division

There needs to be a balance in funding for both road and
transit projects, and a 100 percent allocation of this money
to highways will achieve that.

-- Don Gage, Chairman, Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors

[The Measure B (California's Santa Clara County, 2002 Nov.) would
commit all discretionary state and federal transportation funds
over the next 30 years to roads and highways.]

Meanwhile, Proposition 51 (California, statewide, 2002 Nov.)
aka Traffic Congestion Relief and Safe School Bus Act
provides $7 million for a new museum of technology in the
downtown Sacramento railyard, with $1 million each year
to staff and maintain it.

Proposition 51 would take car sales taxes that normally help pay for
prisons, parks, health care and other government services and use them
to finance dozens of projects, including a rail line with stops at an
Indian casino, golf cart paths for a gated retirement community,
fuel-efficient boats for Lake Tahoe and a railroad museum addition.

Eddy Moore, transportation director for Planning and Conservation
League which drafted the proposition, explains:

While the connection to traffic may not seem obvious for some of
the projects, such as the railroad museum, part of the underlying
theme is to make cities more livable places. Making cities nicer
will lessen the tendency of people to move to the suburbs and
increase traffic congestion.

actualized

Professionalism, as a lifetime aspiration, is a rather limited goal.

Milton Glazer piece in Metropolis or This is what I have learned [.PDF] by Milton Glaser.

Walk now

Surface Transportation Policy Project danger index misrepresents actual danger.

The incident rate is defined as the number of injuries and deaths
among pedestrians divided by the area's population and multiplied by
100,000, giving a standard measure of risk.

Incidence rates that are "different for different ages, genders and
races, which is the case with pedestrian incidents, need to be
adjusted for these factors so that valid comparisons between
populations with different mixes of age, race and gender can be made,"
Kirby D. Cooper, a statistician at the Travis Air Force Base campus of
Chapman University, wrote in his rebuttal. "This was not done in the report, so the
basic measure of risk for pedestrian incidents is flawed."

top: busy Mac

Is my mac busy ? Here's what top shows:

Processes: 60 total, 6 running, 54 sleeping... 201 threads 00:42:06
Load Avg: 5.47, 4.92, 4.68 CPU usage: 82.0% user, 18.0% sys, 0.0% idle
SharedLibs: num = 109, resident = 11.4M code, 300K data, 444K LinkEdit
MemRegions: num = 13359, resident = 347M + 3.39M private, 85.9M shared
PhysMem: 52.4M wired, 302M active, 150M inactive, 505M used, 7.08M free
VM: 4.37G + 47.6M 260002(19) pageins, 378381(0) pageouts

  PID COMMAND      %CPU   TIME   #TH #PRTS #MREGS RPRVT  RSHRD  RSIZE  VSIZE

 1752 top          3.8%  0:03.19   1    14    16   352K   268K   608K  1.70M

 1751 ftp          0.0%  0:00.04   1    13    18   116K   280K   344K  1.64M

 1743 ssh          0.0%  0:00.35   1    16    15     0K   320K   156K  1.49M

 1742 sh           0.0%  0:00.02   1    13    13     0K   224K    68K  1.69M

 1741 ssh          0.0%  0:02.76   1    13    18   228K   320K   400K  1.69M

  736 tcsh         0.0%  0:00.31   1    24    15   452K   476K   640K  5.72M

  732 iTunes      21.4% 27:33:57   9   138   208  3.91M  5.66M  7.42M  79.1M

  719 tcsh         0.0%  0:00.35   1    24    15   448K   476K   592K  5.72M

  673 Sherlock     0.0%  1:12.61   2    67   113   224K  1.99M  1024K  67.1M

  652 Navigator   11.6% 26:49:02  24   349  1301   160M  18.5M   175M   501M

  651 Opera 5.0    3.0%  7:45:46   6   120   739  15.4M  9.69M  20.5M   155M 

  585 Help Viewe   0.0%  0:07.28   2    57   114     0K  1.88M   512K  68.6M

  584 Image Capt   0.0%  0:16.91   1    47    37    64K   352K   212K  34.2M

  583 iPhoto       0.0%  1:21.89   2    94   178     0K  2.09M   632K  88.7M

  572 tcsh         0.0%  0:00.65   1    24    15     0K   476K   244K  5.72M

  570 ssh          0.0%  0:55.12   1    13    18   108K   320K   252K  1.69M

  564 tcsh         0.0%  0:00.15   1    24    15     0K   476K    48K  5.72M

  558 tcsh         0.0%  0:00.17   1    24    15     0K   476K   240K  5.72M

  557 setiathome   2.8% 33:37:12   1    13    82  13.6M+  320K  13.7M+ 17.5M+

  552 tcsh         0.0%  0:00.13   1    24    15     0K   476K    48K  5.72M

  551 Terminal     8.9% 63:29.52  10   122   968  3.81M  12.9M  15.5M  84.0M

  418 TruBlueEnv   0.0% 50:03.78  17   209   264   200K   572K   476K  1.06G

  371 Preview      0.0%  0:41.87   3    90   151    24K  2.83M+  832K  82.6M

  369 QuickTime    0.0%  9:00.66   6   111   220    12K  2.15M+  324K  89.4M

  368 Snapz Pro    0.5% 35:54.10   4   109   141   152K  2.42M   868K  73.7M

  326 Internet E  20.7% 11:10:05  10   128   712  36.8M  23.3M+ 47.0M   186M

  325 Fire        15.1% 28:29:32   5   136   457  7.44M  7.13M  13.1M   118M

  323 Mozilla      7.9% 20:40:15   8   125  4545  93.5M  17.6M   108M   462M

  290 hdid         0.0%  0:03.45   1    11    50    28K   240K   108K  2.12M

  284 Transport    0.0%  0:01.46   2    96    86     4K   944K   112K  56.1M

  283 Palm Deskt   0.5% 39:36.69   1    50    64   112K  1.09M   364K  55.7M

  282 iTunesHelp   0.0%  0:01.20   1    46    43     4K   764K    92K  38.2M

  281 SystemUISe   0.1% 37:55.25   3   117   139   784K  2.13M  1.50M  64.2M

  280 Dock         0.0%  1:52.94   3   125   117   624K  2.84M  1.86M  61.2M

  278 Finder       0.0%  3:19.97   2    97   530  3.89M  5.64M  6.22M  99.8M

  272 pbs          0.0%  0:03.46   1    31    27     0K   272K   112K  18.7M

  263 loginwindo   0.0%  0:35.87   7   144   244   588K  1.95M  1.13M  61.1M

  259 cron         0.0%  0:04.03   1     9    15    20K   244K   104K  1.52M

logos go home

Is a logo on a web page a link to 'home' ?

1) Do users expect logos to be linked to the home page rather than just
being a graphical logo?

2) Can a linked logo replace another link labeled "home"?

3) Does placement of the logo matter (e.g. is top-left better)?

4) If a logo is a link, where would users expect it to go?

Here are my assumptions when designing or reviewing sites:

a) A purely graphical logo is great, but a linked logo provides some
additional functionality at little cost.

b) *I think* most users, *when seeing that a logo is a link*, will
expect it to go to the site's home page - there are few other logical
places for it to go. (related to question 4)

c) I've seen some users click on logos, but most will choose a "home"
link first when looking to go "home." (related to questions 1 & 2)

Therefore...

d) You need to have an explicit "home" link - a logo isn't explicit
enough. (related to question 2)

e) Placement always matters - but if you think of the logo-link as a
supplementary link to the "home" link, then it's not that critical from
a navigation point of view - it's likely more important from a branding
and context point of view. (related to question 3)

Research into this would be great, but frankly I don't *need* research
on this issue. In my opinion, there's almost no risk in making a logo
a link - risk enters the equation when people try to eliminate a "home"
link (in main navigation) which I think is patently a Bad Idea. Logos
don't look like main/global navigation -- they look like branding. Use
them for navigation too as a "bonus" -- Good Idea.

Some related research:

Wichita (If you agree that most site's put their logo top-left, then you can
draw the conclusion that most users expect logos to be links home.)

More discussion at ASIA's sigia-l.

Transit station design: best practice

What makes a good transit station ?

This question is important because the system is being
expanded from Fremont south to to Silicon Valley,
and new stations are being planned now.

1. Buses loop through the paid area,
so passengers can efficiently transfer between bus and
train. Much better than walking across a busy
parking lot, and paying a fare twice.

2. The entranceway should be conspicuous and labeled. Compare
's anonymous Union Station or Mowry entrance to the
Fremont station to a typical London Tube station.

3. An infrared data port on the platform pushes new schedules and daily specials.

4. Designated motocycle parking, fiting five motorcyles in the space
of one car, and the motorcycle exit defended by bollards so as to
pr wholesale theft of motorcyles by van-men.

5. Cross platform transfers should be easy.

6. Elevators and escalators hould be finadable from train doors.

7. Pedestrian entrances need not be sidealk obstructions with escalators exposed to
rain, blowing sand, etc. They could be in storefronts.

8. Platform canopies to protect passengers from rain and sun

Thanks to Seattle's Sounder for the illustrations.

Logical book

Sun-Joo Shin, _The Iconic Logic of Peirce's Graphs_
(MIT Press, 2002).

From the publisher's catalog blurb:
"At the dawn of modern logic, Charles S. Peirce invented
two types of logical systems, one symbolic and the other
graphical. In this book Sun-Joo Shin explores the
philosophical roots of the birth of Peirce's Existential
Graphs in his theory of representation and logical
notation. Shin demonstrates that Peirce is the first
philosopher to lay a solid philosophical foundation for
multimodal representation systems.

"Shin analyzes Peirce's well-known, but much-criticized
nonsymbolic representation system. She presents a new
approach to his graphical system based on her discovery
of its unique nature and on a reconstruction of Peirce's
theory of representation. By seeking to understand
graphical systems on their own terms, she uncovers the
reasons why graphical systems, and Existential Graphs in
particular, have been underappreciated among logicians.

Drawing on perspectives from the philosophy of mind,
cognitive science, logic, and computer science, Shin
provides evidence for a genuinely interdisciplinary
project on multimodal reasoning."

Silly google searches

Silly google searches, an occasional series: proffesional+proofreading.

Pretty Good Business

From CNET:

Security company Network Associates said Monday that it had purchased a
small start-up whose software lets corporations and others "wiretap" their
computer networks.

[...]

While the system could easily be used to track unauthorized uploads to a
network--uploads by hackers, for instance--it could also be used to tap
e-mail, printing jobs, instant messaging discussions and even
voice-over-IP phone calls.

"It is completely transparent to the user," said England, who envisions
companies using the software to see what is going on around their network
and the government using it to investigate employees and hackers. While

Network Associates hasn't approached law enforcement agencies yet, the
network-tapping software could add considerable teeth to the FBI's own
network-tapping program, known as DCS-1000 or, formerly, as "Carnivore."

NAI completes its transition to the Dark Side writes one former PGP-fan.

About this issue I've worked on

In political debates and advocacy, I see two idioms which have a very
hedged connotations.

Bill X is about (list of nice things).
Such assertions usually offer no explanation or enumeration of how
Bill X actually promotes any of the nice things.

Prop 51 is about making the pie bigger for public transit,
bicycling infrastructure, and other environmental needs, especially
considering that California has hardly been putting in enough money
for transportation for basic upkeep, let alone the kind of infrastructure
that is necessary to support a growing population. It's frightening to
contemplate the future knowing that the state is projected to
underinvest in transportation infrastructure by billions of dollars.
Prop 51 is an attempt to fill some of the gap.

I've worked on this issue. Examples.

Such ambiguous claims don't reveal if the speaker actually supports
or opposes specific actions or proposals.

I've been working on Gloabal Climate Change for years.

I've been burning coal for fun and profit.

Smog check

The SF Bay area is getting a new smog check, where cars
must be inspected for condition of various engine, exhaust,
and fuel systems, and tailpipe emmissions are tested while
the car runs on a treadmill.

Most inspections will be performed at gas stations or car repair
businesses which may repair cars failing the inspection or test.
However, some cars are required to submit to a test-only facility.

Explanation 1:

It also sends a small percentage of cars to test-only smog stations,
which cannot make smog repairs. That provision is intended to cut
down on unscrupulous mechanics who fake successful smog tests to
avoid redoing repairs.

Explanation 2;
Smog Check II also requires 15 percent of vehicles to go to test-only
stations, which are not allowed to make repairs. If the cars fail,
then they go to a second shop for pollution-reducing repairs. The
system was meant to curb fraud -- either needless repairs or bribes
to pass smog-belching vehicles.

Just One Fix

Coming soon: Meg Lee Chin's concert.

I asked for _Ministry_ at the Karaoke Bar,
and this concert is what I get.

2002 September 16 (Monday) 9pm

Galaxy, this Washington Avenue nightclub offers a dance floor and live stage.

The club mainly books ska, alternative and hardcore touring acts.
The nightclub is known for its infamous Fetish Nights where the underground
Goth scene emerges for industrial music and risqué fashion shows.
1227 Washington Ave., STL, MO. ph 314-231-2404.

Doors open for most shows at 8 p.m. and close at 3 a.m

From St. Louis Magazine.

Joy to the Mac

One of the bonuses of using Mac OS X is that

M$-Windows-centric adverts posing as error
messages look so out of place that they're
never tempting.

Continental e-mail

I was searching the 1000 messages in my inbox for the confirmation
e-mail which should show the details of my recent booking on Continental.

I searched for Continental, for booked, for flight, and for confirm[ation].

No luck.

Finally, I found a message from eTicketonline@coair.com.

This message turns out to be from Continental, though as a Continental
message it doesn't tell me the flight numbers. It doesn't tell me the
ticket cost. It doesn't tell me the date and time of travel.

It doesn't give me the desination or origin. It doesn't give me the
connecting airports. This e-mail offers only a confirmation number
and an phone number and URL for a personalized travel web page
for this trip.

In the next two months I have 16 flights to 5 cities. To match
these flights to e-mails, to figure out which one I need to print
Aiiieeeee.

Final Score: Expedia 10, Continental 1.

Here is what my e-mail program, elm, shows me:

contingency design

Robust software design means designing for when things
go wrong. Testing and validating inputs, conditional
operations depending on how things got messed up all
make software more reliable and enjoyable.

In usability analysis and interaction design, contingency design
means planning for when the user could make a mistake:
catching the mistake, and providing contextual information
to avoid or repair the mistake.

37signals have a good exposition on contingency design.

For instance, isn't the second screen below better than the first:

TextEdit broken filenames in Mac OS X

The TextEditor in Mac OS X has a stupid way of saving files.

It suggests a default filename of Untitled.rtf, but when a file is
saved with an .rtf extension, it rejects the extension.
Unlink Textpad for Win32, users can't fix
this problem by editing Preferences.

A: Do you want fries with that ?
B: Yes
A: You can't handle fries.
A: Well, you can't have fries with that.

Click on thumbnail to enlarge.

get off the bus

SAMTRANS replaced the Caltrain rail service with
bus service and ridership plummeted 80 percent.

SF Giants fans were much happier on the train.

Meanwhile, Vancouver replaced a fast express bus with a faster train,
and cut 17 minutes off a typical commute, and in St. Louis, somebody
takes their first unaccompanied Metrolink trip.

Breakdown in the Emergency Lane

With disasterous results, Boston has the crazy policy
of allowing traffic to drive on the shoulders of the freeway,
the area normally reserved for emergencies and breakdowns.

See also.

(Note: Massachusetts State "Route 128" is no longer actually that; it is the
local parlance for the Federal Interstate and Defense Highway 95. Be very
aware of this when you drive in a certain State, which has received Billions
in Federal Highway Dollars, called Massachusetts or you may end up like Mr.
Salcedo. These lanes are not marked with any special paint such as Diamonds,
and the signs which list the "open hours" are small and often damaged or
missing. So much for "National Standards"; Highway Engineers: Please don't
"add capacity" to your highways like this.)

Urbanity designed

Some more notes about urban design:

1. Communities vie for uses that produce sales tax dollars such as
shopping centers and office parks. That's called fiscalization
of land use.

2. By adding traffic fatalities to homicides, William H. Lucy,
professor of urban and environmental and planning at U.Va.
with graduate research assistant Raphael Rabalais show
inner ring suburbs are safest place to live.

Lucy reports, 'The truth is people traveling from
the exurbs to the city have many more opportunities to
get killed than those traveling closer in'.
Lucy and Rabalais' Original Study[.PDF], press release: 1, 2.

News coverage: Contra Costa Times, Perimetergo.

3. A letter from Mike Jacoubowsky argues the grade-school
environment of removing lockers and prohibiting cel phones encourages
students to bring cars, if only to for use as lockers to secure after-school
gear. No wonder few children bicycle or walk to school.

4. Another study shows 70 percent of tot run-over deaths involve SUVs.

Weekend cocoon

Holiday weekends are crowded and expensive times to travel.

I'm catching up with housekeeping and Sunday Papers:

A hysterical review of Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987).

Have mobile phone, don't need home phone [NYT]

(I gave up my home phone in 1999 and survive by PCS phone
and cable modem);

Cruised LiveJournal and posted comment on a social Metcalf's Law

(See Linked: The New Science of Networks, by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi for more
background).

Now playing:

chemlab.org:
Meat Beat Manifesto: Prime Audio Soup

DetroitIndustrial:

Radio Active - A concert to promote the Internet Radio Fairness Act.

Ministry: Every Day is Halloween (Twelve Inch Singles)
BOSHETUNMAY : Vote for The Black
Meg Lee Chin Just One Fix
Lords of Acid: Farstucker

ObNerd:
liquid cooled over-clocking

It is lovely to recycle old boxen for learning/demo purposes, but it is
also important to be aware of a couple of gotcha's. One is that it gets
harder and harder to run modern kernels on really old boxes, as they
tend to need a fair chunk of resources to run at all. A second one is
related to a mix of Moore's Law and the cost of electricity.

Old boxes or new -- they tend to burn somewhere between 60 and 100 watts
(presuming we're not talking about bleeding edge duals, and depending on
just how loaded they are. 100 Watts running 24x7 for a year costs $70
at $0.08/KW-hour. Running them inside a building (where we have to
remove the heat) is likely to add somewhere between 1/6 (if one can use
the heat during part of the year, as in a home during the winter) and
1/2 this cost, plus the space they occupy is a cost, plus the
maintenance and admin is a cost (which we'd better neglect or it would
REALLY skew this argument:-) -- call non-labor cost of operation
$100/year just to make the arithmetic easy -- a dollar a watt in round
numbers.

Now, let's assume that a 486 running at 66 MHz can on a good day execute
one instruction per cycle, without worrying too much about what an
"instruction" is. Maybe a float, maybe an int. Let's assume also that
the ones we are using are only burning 50 W (and so cost only $50/year
to operate). Thus our 486 can run at "66 (bogo)MIPS".

A current 2 GHz P4 system (in addition to coming with more disk and
memory, and supporting a far faster network) costs (say) $700 up front
and runs roughly 2000 (bogo)MIPS, or 30x as much. It draws about 100W
(to be generous) and hence costs about $100/year to operate.
Hmmm. A 30 node 486 cluster has about the same aggregate bogoMIPS as a
single P4. It costs $1500/year to operate in electricity and cooling
and shelf/floor space. Even allowing for the cost of buying the P4, it
is twice as cheap and we haven't even discussed Amdahl's Law with NICs
on the old 486 ISA bus yet.

To me it isn't at all clear that recycling old computers this way is
really "green" -- good for the environment in aggregate. Yes, you find
a home for many computers that might otherwise make it to the landfill
(or might better be properly recycled to recover their toxic metals).
OTOH, you burn a lot more free energy to get anything done. This latter
argument is even stronger if you compare the energy costs of tower 486's
to the energy costs of a laptop, which might burn only 25W even running
at > GHz speeds. One of the motivations cited for Transmeta/Blade
computers -- they don't run the highest possible clock, but they are
VASTLY cooler and cheaper to operate than my stack of dual Athlons.

So, for fun, 486's are fine if you can afford to feed them. As a
learning exercise (in perhaps a school), they are also just lovely,
especially if you can foist/hide their real cost of operation in the
building's electricity budget, which is often a lot easier than trying
to get money to buy a single modern computer. However, they are NOT
efficient ways to get any sort of useful work done. Neither are 133 MHz
586/Pentia or 200 MHz P6 class CPUs. Even a free 400 MHz/bogoMIP PIII
costs $500/year to operate (they tend to burn more like 100 W instead of
50) vs $100 to get the same aggregate MIPS as a P4, making them a break
even proposition on perfectly scalable code over 2 years, NEGLECTING
admin costs. This is pretty much the oldest speed class that it makes
sense to operate for production in an administratively efficient
environment, and even these are pretty much ready to retire.

For more, see the Beowulf project.

Obviously a plan would be to get a cluster of 1000 '486 tower PCs
for ~free, then apply for an energy and environment grant
to replace them with 100 p4 rackmount systems.