Whoa -~! You nailed the timing on that bro! You are the world's first digital soothsayer. I read your post and went into hater mode, but dayum son you have this site pegged.

That's inspirational! Thanks! At what latitude do you live? I am at 43.1 north, and would be curious if you get by.

Utilizing VMs relates to power consumption specifically because aggregating a physical machine into a virtual one reduces power consumption. Why pay for idle CPU cycles on two machines when one will suffice? If both machines are being utilized you have an excellent argument to keep them both, but it falls apart when the machines are largely idle. We're in the scope of the lazy weekend sysadmin at home, so of course these machines all run only sporadically.

As for multiple human bodies using a machine simultaneously - of course you are correct only one physical human can access the GUI of a machine at a time. But between network access and the time honored tradition of "waiting" and "sharing", it's pretty reasonable for 2 or even 3 people to maintain separate user profiles on a system and just swap between them.

Even that said, it's completely realistic on Linux systems to supply an additional video card, assign a different session ID to it, and have two monitors, two keyboards, and two mice, all working simultaneously and without regard for the other. I've seen community libraries with 4 of these on a single computer.

Yeah, big old beige box computers I put together myself with crummy old operating systems and screen savers that talked to ET. About as bad as it got. I didn't ever feel so badly about it in the winter when it was about 10 degrees anything outside.

Hrm. Not sure, I am a computer scientist. I'd say ask an electrical engineer, but they're probably all busy at work.

LoudMusic's answer is completely correct.

Think of what a terminal means, and expand your notion outwards - a terminal could be an electronic piano, or it could be a digital thermostat, or it could be a hacked appleTV. Each of these things interfaces with the operating system directly, and none of them require a console GUI. I'm quite fond of remote desktop, which lets you use a headless machine as though it had one, using someone else's head. Watching media off a remote server is a similar example - there's absolutely no need for there to be a GUI.

In the rare cases where a GUI is required to maintain or repair an operating system, then the VM manager always provides a method to access it. The interface is usually cumbersome - like watching a favorite movie on a hospital heartrate monitor - but is always enough to let you get the job done. However, some VM managers provide a console that is fully usable, even running in full screen mode with full motion video, 3D, and audio capabilities. These products are very mature and cater to nearly everyone's needs.

I got a killawatt meter a few years ago and used to aggregate all the power to run through it. (This was at home where you could do such a thing on a single circuit). I realized I was burning something like 8 to 15 bucks a month per PC (new hampshire power at around 14 cents per kwh I think we are set to). Being a college kid back then with 40 bucks of cash burning just to "seem geeky" ended up being an eye opener (the killawatt paid for itself basically the first 10 days I owned it).

Fortunately we have all moved to VMs and these days I still run the same misconfigured lamp stack, but now on a vm on a mac mini that the whole house uses for playing and listening to music, videos, movies, surfing, email - the everything-computer. With virtualbox running hidden in the background with another little universe crammed into it. (Running a nat router in a vm seems cool to me more than it really is. Rather, putting a wan address on a vm seems cool.)

We need a new level of meta responses to this sort of post. Around 2007 the last person online became a cynic and mastered sarcasm. We need a third declension of retort that is new and beautiful. I've gotten so tired of our homotextual replies.

Take a picture of someone and photoshop in a bong and then do this. See how long it takes to get them fired.

Or worse, their boss will want to hang out.

Me though, 60 grand of undergrad debt, minus whatever I chipped off these past three years (a bit!), I've gotten the need to feel smart out of my system. I am working, making good money, and hedging my bets -- I wouldn't bet on me to finish the master's and get an even higher paying job to cancel it out.

But my opinion is worthless since I am employed. Ask someone who's been out on the front lines, trying to find work and ask them how bad one needs a master's degree.

my life sucks

i have to wait 2 days to get a dvd mailed to my porch

my wrists are itchy, pass the knife.

we should just go get a bunch more rocks so that they are not valuable. it's a damned rock. but since we're apparently stuck on this one forever, they are worth more than gold.

did you people know the top of the washington monument is made of aluminium? cause that used to be precious too.

let the dude keep his pebble. lets be noble and go back to the moon. we used to be good at it.

Extrapolating from 1999 when I got on board here, in 2018 slashdot will be posting stories about Michael Jackson's alien love child. No mention of facebook.

If the phishers figure out some way of gaining 185000 dollars, they might be able to afford a vanity tld. Maybe they could steal 185000 using deceptive luring techniques.

I bet icann will use part of that 185000 dollars to improve the title of "random dude in eastern europe" to "sir".

we do the same all the way up here in southern new hampshire. i'm too lazy to google where massachusettes is but i believe it is definitely in new england as the OP claims.