Ugh, that last sentence makes no sense; I meant:

"its loss probably stopped quite a few aspiring 3D artists from learning RM."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_Rendering_Tools

The article explains most of it. BMRT was a freely available Renderman-compatible renderer. It was available for years until Larry Gritz decided to produce an upgraded commercial version.

It was quite a fun toy to play with, and also probably stopped quite a few aspiring 3D artists from learning RM.

Firewall Builder

That's about as good as it gets without the risk of a PHB letting the orcs in!

I can't agree with this - if the termination of a transmission line is correct at each end, then the length has no matter at all for any frequency (in theory, not accounting for increasing losses with frequency, but then there's a reason for length restrictions in the CatX/Ethernet standards).

If you're talking about a *tuned* line (eg a stub or a tuned antenna feeder), then length is important. But we're not. If you've got problems with harmonics or matching and reflections then your ethernet cards are probably bottom-shelf knock-offs.

The problem with premade-lenght cables is you're going to run into tangles if many changes are made, and are going to end up coiling. Make that coil too tight and you're going to cause crosstalk. A custom job with all cables neatly following defined routes with no coils, twists or kinks is going to make life easier in the long term.

Big companies? Small ones too. If a machine is having problems that can't be quickly diagnosed and fixed, then we re-image from a central repository (which stores one standard image for each type of PC we have purchased) - no interaction is needed so the IT staff can get on with something more productive than clicking dialog boxes and installing drivers.

Although having everybody running a thin client to a Terminal Services cluster would be so much easier...

Alex