Tim wrote: On Sunday, August 12, 2001, at 02:41 PM, Faustine wrote:

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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.

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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.