Tim wrote: On Sunday, August 12, 2001, at 02:41 PM, Faustine wrote: > >>> Cryptographically speaking, *yawn*. > > "Fairly impressive" in that it's better than what I've got in my > basement > right now. And for me, part of the appeal lies in the satisfaction of > putting something like that together entirely yourself out of components > other people considered worthless and discarded. Not to mention being > able > to use it for whatever you want, whenever you want, without depending on > anyone else's machine: a wonderful blend of self-sufficiency, ingenuity > and megalomania, ha. >>So, are you now claiming you plan to build one? Why else the "part of >>the appeal lies in the satisfaction of" bit? As a way to address the implicit question "why would anybody ever want to build a thing like that". For what it's worth, at one point I was tantalizingly close to getting my hands on a donation of 53 G3s. Unfortunately it fell through, but if an offer like that ever happens to come my way again, I can't really say I'd turn it down. If someone else is convinced it's interesting enough to be willing to foot the power bill (as I had anticipated would be the case), where's the downside? Nobody thinks strategically enough to see why they'd be better off buying me a few shiny new G4s instead. Since I know that's 100% out of the realm of possiblity, it's better to be resourceful and take whatever I can get: more CPU power than I have now (or am likely to get adequate access to in the near future). I might have even been able to turn around and share/rent time on it to other "low-priority" people like myself who're just out to further their own research without getting underfoot elsewhere. Not a bad idea, at any rate. I still maintain that the lure of tinkering and scavaging is a large part of the appeal anyway. If it leaves you flat and, being rich and retired, have far better ways to spend your time, to each his own. ~Faustine.