Hope Google releases a better ChromeCast device - with an Ethernet port and support for accepting HDMI-CEC events from the TV so you can use the TV remote to Play/Pause/FF/RW.
The current one is sucky.
And if you are on a metered internet connection, beware: While plugged in, the current ChromeCast pulls lots of large photos to display as the screensaver slideshow. It would be nice if it could be pointed to a local network share to display a slideshow with your own photos.

Must be the SlashCode "asciifier" which removes all non-ASCII characters in summaries and posts, thus mangling a lot of names, locations and math formulas.

Something like this is already implemented on HP's PA-RISC and (later Itanium) servers since last century. Go onto the system console, type Ctrl+B and you have access to a small computer completely separate from the main OS and CPU, running diagnostic software which has "probes" on all the hardware buses and components. On the newer servers you can use-it to power on and off various parts of the server, and to enable or disable various busses and connections, allowing you to electrically partition a single server in multiple ones (CPU board 0 + I/O board 0 = 1st server, CPU board 1 + I/O board 1 = 2nd one ...) power them on and access their consoles. Like some kind of VMWare implemented in hardware.

Try iTunes on OS X.
It's much harder, better, faster and stronger that the Windows version.

Papers, Please.

Spinning HDD in iMac vs 1.21 Jigabytes/sec PCIe SSD in Mac Pro.

I am having some memory flashbacks to when people were saying about the same things about USB.

Thunderbolt *IS* PCI Express. Interfacing any PCI hardware with Thunderbolt is extremely simple from the manufacturer's p.o.v. - it's a single bridge chip. Then you use the same drivers you used for the internal PCI/PCIe card.

Oh, thanks !
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/hardware/720/browse_aix.html
I wonder if the base price includes PowerVM or a graphics card.
At 37 to 42 dB, the tower is a bit on the noisy side - on par with the old "tower" Mac Pro.

Considering that the last SGI, HP, IBM and Sun workstations used to cost way more than that for the entry models, i do say it's a fair price.
And as perpenso mentioned in a post below, you are able to get a mac mini starting at $600 as a cheaper option.

Any UNIX(R) admins with mod points in here ? Mod parent up :)

You're absolutely right. I do have a mac mini and it does everything i need it for. But like the most family car owners who dream of having a muscle car, mac mini owners dream of getting a Mac Pro - even if they don't need it.

I think mac mini is the cheapest UNIX(R) workstation there ever was.
Even the SGI Indy in the basic configuration (16Mb ram, 8bit 2D graphics) was incredibly expensive when new.

Apple haters or not, the saddest thing to realize is that the only UNIX(R) Workstation on the market is now the Mac. As Apple is the only UNIX 03 certification holder who is still making desktops and laptops. All the other UNIX 03 hardware produced at the moment is Datacenter-only rackmounted servers.

So $2999 for a powerful UNIX(R) Workstation is a fair price.

I use the BEST editor there is - $EDITOR.

I save files as 7bit ASCII, hard-wrap at column 72, and if a file extension is required, i use .txt.

In the last 5 years smoking was banned almost everywhere (public & private institutions) in Romania. Also there are way less "smoke-belcher" cars on the street now. But there's more dust - as almost all the forests around the cities were cut down.

Do you think you are not being monitored here in the Old Continent ?