There's actually an amateur radio project to create a mesh network, as WiFi channels 1-6 actually fall into the ham bands. It's not very widespread in that you can just set up a node and get on, but it is pretty easy to deploy at events or in emergencies - just take the router out and plug it in. The site is hsmm-mesh.org.

A lot of the visual effects companies tend to run Linux on workstations (except for things like Photoshop, obviously), as well as on the servers. Not sure what Pixar's using on their workstations, but either way 3D modeling and compositing are different beasts than editing.

That said, there are a few commercial video editors that seem to support Linux; I found out about Mistika on Wikipedia. I'm not sure how widely systems like that are used, though.

Another option is to take a normal car and add a couple deep cycle batteries and charge them from a battery isolator. These are used in RVs, and let you charge the other batteries from the alternator along with the starting battery while not letting both banks drain all the way down (so you can still start your car). Then get a big inverter and hook it to the deep cycle batteries. Of course, if you need a lot of power a dedicated generator may be easier.

If/When this comes to market, it will hopefully have some protection built in. In part, if their circuit sensed existing voltage on the output, it should shut off. Sort of similar to photovoltaic intertie inverters, though they're meant to run in phase with the grid and then detect when its down. Basically, the problem you refer to is called islanding, and there are some methods to avoid it. And of course, you can't always outsmart a fool, but some protection is better than nothing.

A decent quality inverter should be able to handle the startup, but sizing it to be a bit bigger than you need is a good idea, as is making sure you don't skimp on inverter-to-battery cabling. Even better, if you are going to set up a bit of a larger backup system, is if you can use a 24 or 48 volt battery and inverter instead of 12. (Then maybe you'd charge it from a generator, or some solar panels if you want.) Less DC amps makes it easier to start bigger things.

This is a risk you run even with people who don't know what they're doing connecting a generator during a power failure. Hopefully anyone playing with an alternative energy source in their own home (solar/wind, or generator) will do a some of their homework and avoid this. In the case of grid tied solar, pretty much all domestically available grid-tied inverters have very rigorous protection to avoid an islanding situation. Even if they're not installed exactly up to code they should be able to detect this and not backfeed the grid.

Then again, someone can still be a moron and connect a non-grid-tie inverter up during a power failure and backfeed, so who knows. I guess this is bound to happen at some point, but hopefully most DIY people learn enough to know why this is bad by the time they get to this point.

I got curious about it and tired it out in a VM once. It was neat, from the standpoint of playing around with a different UNIX variant that I could get for free, but beyond that, what would be the point? It may be the core of OS X, and I'm sure it's a big help for people who want to do things like write device drivers for OS X, but I'm not sure I've heard of anyone using it as a desktop or a server (I mean aside from an OS X machine). So while you may be able to grab it and use it, if you want a server or a free UNIX-like desktop you may as well just go with a Linux distro or a BSD.

I mean, I'd be interested to hear if anyone uses OpenDarwin (or one of the variants) regularly, but it seems like for most things there's not much point.

Yeah, I have an Octane II. I don't browse the Web on it, but from time to time I use it for some graphics work. Namely, Photoshop 3 came with it. It still runs beautifully. When I'm not doing that I use it as a foot stool or as reinforcement for the pile of papers and other stuff in my work area. It's a very sturdy machine.

Yes, coal is indeed wood (and other organic matter) from the past, as is oil. The very distant past. It was once part of the carbon cycle, but after getting buried and compressed (and thus formed into coal/oil) the carbon cycle in the atmosphere gradually worked around it (over millions of years). So digging it up and burning it puts that back into the current atmosphere and carbon cycle, which could cause problems. IE, I don't expect the trees to get re-sequestered like the ones that became fossil fuels back in the day.

On the other hand, I guess it would be possible that by planting all the trees you would help the carbon cycle adapt to the increased carbon. Again I'm not sure, but I suppose planting more trees would be a good thing even if it doesn't completely solve the problem.

I'm not totally sure, but I would imagine it would be something like this: When you burn a fossil fuel, you're taking carbon that was sequestered in the ground and reintroducing it into the natural carbon cycle, thus throwing things off (eg, climate change). Now, if the carbon credits work by having some company agree to plant enough trees to absorb a certain amount of carbon (say the equivalent to the round trip flight to Tahiti), the trees will in absorb it, but the carbon hasn't actually been taken out of the cycle. IE, they will die or get eaten by something, and the carbon will still get released into the atmosphere eventually.

On the other hand, if the credits work by using some renewable source to displace carbon that would otherwise be released from fossil fuels (for instance if a company agreed to generate a certain amount of electricity from solar and pump it into the grid; again I'm not completely familiar and am taking a stab), then in theory there would be some benefit. But then you could just cut out the middleman and not take your flight or your long drive or whatever.

I think this is partly what he was talking about. IE, instead of having a UPS which converts battery power to AC while simultaneously charging the batteries, just have a big DC power supply, float the batteries on it, and use that to power all of the servers and stuff. This does make sense; I have a similar setup with a Mini-ITX motherboard I use as a home mail server and some other things - it has the 12 volt car power supply in it, along with a small 12 volt gel cell battery for backup.

I think there are commercial systems that operate with DC like this; I know for the telecom 48 VDC is used a lot. This is still a manageable voltage, as high voltage DC is a little more difficult to work with than AC at similar RMS voltages (though I'm sure higher voltages like 108 VDC are used too), but you don't need absolutely huge wire. Also, there are low voltage DC-input ATX power supplies available. I've seen them for 12, 24, and 48 volts. Generally they will produce a regulated output for the PC, so if the battery voltage fluctuates somewhat it's not much of a problem, provided it's within spec. Also, normal AC units usually work by rectifying the incoming line to DC, and then using a step-down converter to get the lower DC voltages. So you could probably run one directly off of 170 VDC (170 volts is around the peak of the AC sine wave).

And of course, if you have a system like this it wouldn't be that hard to throw some photovoltaics in too, which would reduce the load on the main power supply (and thus the draw from the grid).

There is some confusion here, because Linux's use in this area is mainly for visual effects, which is different from editing. Of course Linux is used on renderfarms mostly, but it is also used on the desktop for things like compositing and 3D work. In fact, work on Avatar was mostly done on Ubuntu (the article mostly talks about their render farm, but also mentions desktops).

That said, I think some high-end editing systems do run Linux, like Flame which has been mentioned here.

Don't forget Shake and Nuke.

No, the proper way to edit video is to do it in Emacs.

Well, that could be interesting, but then again I'm not sure I want to know some of the things people use Tor for :).