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Comment Reminds me of my HS days. (Score 1) 621

by angelbunny (#30307534) Attached to: SETI@Home Install Leads To School Tech Supervisor's Resignation

At the high school I went to we had a 3D animation class running xsi softimage. It was a fun class and I eventually became the TA. I then discovered that all of the computers in the entire school district had been wired using fiber underground. This wasn't 5000 computers, but still it was a good 800 or so unused. For our 3D class most computers would be set to render and they would stay on all night. The next morning (usually over the weekend) we would come back to see if our work was done.

I had the genius idea to install the headless xsi renderfarm backend software (can't remember the name of it) on all of the computer in the district. This way the rendering could be greatly accelerated over the school district. The problem is the education license of softimage is everything the full retail version has with a limitation on multi computer rendering. After I ran tests on the software for a week planning to streamline the software into every computer, the school got a call. The xsi people called letting us know of our license restrictions. Because of this, the plan never went through. However, I never would of in a million years have foreseen a consequence like being charged 1mil because of the pissy school district.

Sometimes in the IT world when you think outside the box and it does genuinely help it only comes back to bite you in the ass regardless. *sigh*

Comment Re:Oops (Score 1) 621

by angelbunny (#30307464) Attached to: SETI@Home Install Leads To School Tech Supervisor's Resignation

I could be wrong. I only speak from light personal experience but if you set the program to run at idle priority via windows (not inside the program) it really does not slow down the machine, even a single core machine. However, it will rarely run at 100% cpu either.

What one needs to do is set the program to bootup from a .bat file (or as a service) with /idle after the program path (if i remember correctly). This allows windows itself to set the program to the lowest priority. If you set the priority to low inside the program it hardly does anything at all.
Media

Best PC DVR Software, For Any Platform? 536

Posted by timothy from the open-minded-open-ended dept.
jshamacher writes "I've used MythTV for several years (first on Slackware, now via Mythbuntu) and it's good. But not great — I have a list of annoyances as long as my arm. For example, even 0.22 still has problems playing many DVDs and I frequently have to fall back on Xine. Since upgrading to new hardware, I've had issues with sound dropping out; these problems only occur for Myth, not for anything else. So now I'm trying out alternatives. Freevo seemed promising when I tried it a few months ago but it had its own issues. I'm also increasingly getting pressure from my family to get things like NetFlix streaming working on this machine. This seems to imply migrating to a Windows-based solution. I threw XP on it and tried MediaPortal but could never get that to control my Motorola cable box via the IR blaster. So my questions to you: What DVR software do you use? Are you happy with it? What don't you like? Are there any packages out there that 'just work' as media hubs and for time-shifting cable TV?"
Intel

Intel Shows 48-Core x86 Processor 366

Posted by timothy from the soon-will-be-in-calculators dept.
Vigile writes "Intel unveiled a completely new processor design today the company is dubbing the 'Single-chip Cloud Computer' (but was previously codenamed Bangalore). Justin Rattner, the company's CTO, discussed the new product at a press event in Santa Clara and revealed some interesting information about the goals and design of the new CPU. While terascale processing has been discussed for some time, this new CPU is the first to integrate full IA x86 cores rather than simple floating point units. The 48 cores are set 2 to a 'tile' and each tile communicates with others via a 2D mesh network capable of 256 GB/s rather than a large cache structure. "
Security

Somali Pirates Open Up a "Stock Exchange" 666

Posted by kdawson from the send-in-the-sba dept.
reginaldo writes to clue us that pirates in Somalia have opened up a cooperative in Haradheere, where investors can pay money or guns to help their favorite pirate crew for a share of the piracy profits. "'Four months ago, during the monsoon rains, we decided to set up this stock exchange. We started with 15 "maritime companies" and now we are hosting 72. Ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking,' Mohammed [a wealthy former pirate who took a Reuters reporter to the facility] said. ... Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel. 'I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation,' she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband in alimony. 'I am really happy and lucky. I have made $75,000 in only 38 days since I joined the "company."'"
Graphics

Building 3D Models On the Fly With a Webcam 93

Posted by kdawson from the do-you-see-what-i-see dept.
blee37 writes "Here is an excellent video demonstration of a new program developed by Qi Pan, a graduate student, and other researchers at the University of Cambridge. The 'ProFORMA' software constructs a 3D model of an object in real time from (commodity) webcam video. The user can watch the program deduce more pieces of the 3D model as the object is moved and rotated. The resulting graphics are of high quality."

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