Penguicon mailer, computer obstacles and opportunities
The Penguicon mailer announces our fifth Guest of Honor, Joan D. Vinge, and has been edited from last year to inform more people to bring their computers. I had to drive down to the west side of Ann Arbor yesterday to pick it up, and back to Oak Park, in the fog. Fortunately Blasted Bill was working in my area and stopped by to pick them up at my house so I didn't have to drive up to Great Lakes Crossing where he lives. I found out on this trip that my new eBay car charger for my handheld does not work.
While waiting for the mailer, I stopped by Computer Alley and investigated prices. I thought Pentium 4 was an older technology than it really is. There's no such thing as a bottom-of-the-line motherboard, memory or power supply compatible with my chip. Since I'm used to putting together bargain-basement computers, any one of these components is more than I wanted to pay for all of it combined. The stuff that allows hyper-threading, so it doesn't slow the P4 down, is twice that.
How am I going to walk the path of the *nix nature if I have to install such a huge build of Linux on my one-point-nothing lame-o-hertz Pentium 1? It's on 4 CDs and is normally distributed on DVD, which gives you a clue of the high expectations Fedora obviously involves. Fortunately, someone from the Michigan Humanist Forum started a Wiki for us, and during this discussion I mentioned my desire to learn and he mentioned he's starting his own web hosting business. He'd be happy to help me learn the ins and outs, since teaching increases his own mastery.
Comments
cosette-valjean on Jan. 13, 2005 5:52 PM — Smile
How nice for him to offer to help you. You shall be master of all computers one of these days.
phecda on Jan. 13, 2005 6:14 PM
On the computer equipment -- Hyperthreading is overrated. We turn it off because it causes more problems than it solves. At best, with a database that is capable of making use of hyperthreading, you might see a 30% increase in performance. More typical is 0% to 5%.
And yes, you have a nearly top of the line CPU there, so it's going to require a good motherboard.
matt-arnold on Jan. 13, 2005 7:48 PM
From what I understand, if I'm careful and patient I can get the motherboard, memory, and power supply for under $150. Today the aforementioned friend in Grand Rapids and I had a long Q&A session over instant messenger about:
the command line commands
how is DNS set up (the domain name system)
tab completion of commands
what is a regular expression
what text editors there are that do not need a graphical user interface
the "super cow powers" of auto install/upgrade programs.
Next I will ask for an overview of purposes and limits of the mysterious applications called PHP and mysql. The discussions have proceeded like this: He writes a definition. I ask for a definition of the first term in the definition that has not been defined yet. Repeat. It's been very profitable.
phecda on Jan. 13, 2005 8:13 PM
That sounds about right. This will be a good learning experience for you.
brendand on Jan. 14, 2005 4:17 AM
When you're done, write a book. Give me a copy. :)
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