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Technology

Geek-Chic Power Houses 185

Posted by michael from the conspicuous-consumption dept.
nakhla writes "Wired.com is running a lengthy article on wired houses of celebrities. The article describes some of the tech that has gone into the houses of actors, businessmen, and professional athletes, outlining the steps they've gone to in order to obtain techno-nirvana. Included in the article is a profile of JAG's Catherine Bell (my vote for sexiest geek), and her use of a wireless network to connect her to her TiBook, Gateway Laptop, and...get this...Sharp Zaurus Linux PDA. For those of you who are just dying to string fiber around your entire house, this article will have you making a run to your favorite networking hardware store."
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Geek-Chic Power Houses More

Geek-Chic Power Houses

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  • FTPed games (Score:1, Funny)

    by dirvish ( 574948 )
    The article talks about how Tony Hawk has a special PS2 that will play anything he burns. Game-makers FTP him games, he burns them and plays them as a beta-tester. Do I have to learn how to skateboard to get that job?

  • Dang (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @06:49PM (#4508466)
    I thought it said Geek Chicks.

    • Re:Dang (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I could swear that this title was reused not so very long ago. I remember it because it took me a minute last time to realize that the title rhymes...

    • Re:Dang (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by grumpygrodyguy ( 603716 )
      I thought it said Geek Chicks.

      For real, talk about a let-down.

  • Catherine Bell (Score:5, Funny)

    by tetro ( 545711 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @06:50PM (#4508470) Homepage
    Who doesn't want to show her their hard drives
    and give her some good RAM.

    Bite me if it's cliche, but you know you're thinking this.
    • Hahaha.

      A linux mag should do a photoshoot of her in something almost-not-there and all the geektoys. That could quite possibly cause the /. community to explode.

      [That is the queue for some politically correct and/or sensitive people to chime in with: "not all /.ers are men and/or like women and/or like porn and/or like linux and/or like foo]

    • It is cliche. And your disclaimer does nothing to change that. I'd still hit it..

  • Catherine Bell (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Catherine Bell

    Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!

  • Geek-Chic? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Quaoar ( 614366 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @06:51PM (#4508478)
    Who cares? The world needs more geek chicks!

    • Re:Geek-Chic? (Score:5, Funny)

      by mcpkaaos ( 449561 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @07:07PM (#4508616)
      The world has plenty of geek chicks. We just don't normally see them as they are nearly indistinguishable from the geek males.

      ;-)

      Oh this is not a troll. ;P

      --
      [McP]KAAOS
      • Agreed. Women shouldn't have more hair on their arms than a man does on their legs.

      • Re:Geek-Chic? (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by unicron ( 20286 )
        Yes and no. True geek chicks, chicks that actually no their shit, usually aren't too hot. They are, however, freaks. Nothing is off limits. Mostly because of that whole "beggars can't be choosers" maxim. If you've seen it done in a porn flick odds are that one weird tech club girl will be down. Take advantage.

        The other side of the spectrum: The girlfriend's of geeks. 95% of the time they are balls to the wall hot. Cute chicks love dorks. Some guy in my LUG group took this girl he barely knew to ComicCon. Super fine chick. He walked around with a shirt on that said 'pedophile' while she wore one that said 'underage' and she was down with it. She also seemed very comfortable with making out with strange girls, something he and his camera didn't mind one bit. Remember: the hotties love the geeks, provided you know when to shut up about the geek shit.

  • Money (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sheepab ( 461960 )
    You can make a shitload of money setting up these houses too. My neighbor does it for a living...he even wired the house of the guy that created Doom. Done with my claim to fame.

  • FYI (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @06:55PM (#4508514)
    On a pseudo-related note, Catherine Bell [amazingcatherine.com] is a Scientologist [google.com].

  • Catherine Bell is a Scientologist. (Score:4, Informative)

    by ChadN ( 21033 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @06:57PM (#4508527)
    So can she still be a 'geek'? Of the Slashdot kind?

    (She is hardcore into Dianetics, and at least somewhat under "church" control... This is from radio interviews I heard with her, so I wasn't distracted by her looks. :)
    • You unfaithful dog! By the holy clarics (lawyers) of the Holy Church of Scientology you will be silenced!

      All non-believers will be converted or silenced forever!

    • Re:Catherine Bell is a Scientologist. (Score:4, Funny)

      by Dr Caleb ( 121505 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @07:04PM (#4508592) Homepage Journal
      Man, you just destroyed one good fantasy.

      If what you say is correct, I wouldn't do her with PhysicsScholar's dick and someone else pushing.

    • So what????
      does that not allow me to be a slashdot geek?
      Excuse me but the fact that some slashdot readers disagree with scientology or it`s policies and that i happen to BE a scientologist does NOT make me a non "slashdot kind geek".
      I am a /. reader... have been for years know... and i do not give a f***ck it some people don`t agree with my religion`s policies, i can still be tolerant about it and keep one reading NEWS FOR NEWS. STUFF THAT MATTERS.
      • Well, since you are here, how much is true of the xenu stories on the net? (I won't comment on the validity of a space alien's dead remains being the cause of most human suffering. I believe that an anthropomorphic deity made all creation from his navel lint. Both require a bit of *ahem* faith.)
      • So what????
        does that not allow me to be a slashdot geek?
        Excuse me but the fact that some slashdot readers disagree with scientology or it`s policies and that i happen to BE a scientologist does NOT make me a non "slashdot kind geek"

        I think that you'll find that there is very very little love lost for scientology (I refuse to capitalize it; churches and religions don't have "trade secrets", IMO) on Slashdot. The people involved with the running of the "church" of scientology have been heavy handed [skeptic.com] in the extreme when it comes to things near and dear to the Slashdot readership [siliconvalley.com]. It is a hot-button topic, to be sure. Your "church" is not seen in a very positive light by those that come here. One could therefore argue that, by extension, this means that a healthy percentage of the online "geek" community harbors negative feelings towards your "church". So it's likely that you might get a little heat if you bring up scientology on Slashdot.

        The reason you might not be terribly welcome here in most people's minds is because, for good or ill, they cannot separate what your "church" does with what you say -- when you mention scientology. If you don't bother mentioning it, it's probable that nobody will like or dislike you anymore than they would any other person here. It's not a First Amendment issue so much as a "cultural" thing. I certainly wouldn't start yelling about my PETA membership at the annual Meat Packers Association convention meeting unless I wanted to start a shouting match. Perhaps you feel differently. I don't know. It's a free country.

        Whatever my personal feelings are about scientology, I really don't care one way or the other about your religious beliefs (especially if they have no bearing on the conversation at hand). To each his own, I say; I certainly don't bother mentioning that I'm an agnostic Libertarian every time I post here. I'm just trying to give out a little friendly, free advice: you'd do well to not bring up your religion in this forum unless you're participating in a discussion about religion. Assuming you don't want your conversation degenerating into a flamefest, that is.

        -B

      • Have you ever read, actually read Operation Clambake [xenu.net]?

        Scientology is, frankly, a company/cult. It is not even remotely close to being a religion. It was founded by a science fiction author who had been quoted earlier as saying "If a man truly wished to become wealthy, the best thing he could do would be to start a religion."

        Techies have a legitimate beef with the Church of Scientology -- the CoS went on a series of attacks on USENET against people that had escaped Scientology. These people had been posting information about Scientology (the stuff that you aren't *supposed* to find out about until you're deep in debt and will believe anything that makes it look like you haven't been suckered.)

        Being a real, tech loving geek and being a Scientologist may not be completely incompatible, but it's damn near.

  • Having a wireless network makes you wired? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by joeflies ( 529536 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @06:58PM (#4508539)
    I bet every person on this board has the stuff in Catherine Bell's house. Except she makes news because she's famous and a woman :>)

    Seriously, I think the doorbell webcam/image pusher is the most interersting aspect, not that she has a Zaurus (more than likely she gets these gadgets as promo items so they are seem by the 'cool crowd')

  • Must be tough (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @06:59PM (#4508542)
    It can't be easy to have parties and sleep with multiple partners and fiddle with your home network system.

    I guess semi-celebrities like those on *snicker* JAG have the time.

  • iTunes (Score:5, Informative)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @07:00PM (#4508551) Homepage Journal
    Actually, one of the cheapest and easiest things I have done with our house is to set up an older Powerbook with a minimal installation of OS X and iTunes. Our entire music collection from CD is now 40GB on the hard drive. The Powerbook is hooked up to the stereo system so it can be piped anywhere throughout the house and the Powerbook is equipped with an Airport card so one can access it from anywhere in the house. Pretty easy and certainly cheaper, yet more sophisticated than many of the other high end stereo systems I've seen. In fact, our next door neighbor (an orthopedic surgeon and her husband who have a VERY expensive home multimedia system with dual 300 CD changers etc...etc...etc...) are absolutely blown away by this simple solution. We have mixes on it for dinner music, work out music, punk, bluegrass, classical and on and on. The other cool thing is that you hook your iPod up to it and you can synch driving music mixes when you plug the iPod into your car stereo system for road trips.

    Pretty cool.

    • Re:iTunes (Score:4, Interesting)

      by glesga_kiss ( 596639 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @07:29PM (#4508772)
      I've done similar. Redhat based firewall/NAT/samba box sharing 180 gig of storage (one half is a backup of the other to be truthful, highly recommended with hard-drive reliability these days) to every PC in the house. PC in living room is hooked up to a hi-fi, which also uses the tape-outs to pipe music to a couple of rooms. VHS RF-out also piped around the house, allowing DVD, video and cable to be viewed anywhere. Laptop in bedroom connected to midi stereo and wireless lan gives me independant music if I want.

      With VNC, you can remote control your home jukebox from anywhere in the world, but I do prefer the couch. Total cost: Not much! The server is an old 200MHz box, that's all it takes. Wireless lan cost a bit, but it has other uses.

      With the addition of a cable modem, streaming files anywhere in the world is great. I could be in work or a hotel miles from home with full access to my music collection. Bliss!

    • iTunes/Home Theater& Wireless AV (Score:4, Informative)

      by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @09:57PM (#4509697)
      Check this site for a how-to on your own wireless computer and home theater setup [kentidwell.com]...using iTunes & Mac, of course :)

      In a pinch, just use your iPod to drive the house system...

  • hmm must be nice to be rich... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fungus ( 37425 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @07:00PM (#4508553)
    But keep both feets on the ground, because you're not and (probably) will never be rich enough to spend millions on toys.

    This is nice and all... but it remains toys. I dont think anyone really need a plasma screen instead of a regular mirror for shaving, but hey, its cool.

    We're like mechanics looking at a movie star's custom ferrari.
  • The houses sound sweet and all, but this stuff'll be obsoleted in a few years anyways. How about some easily upgradeable houses, like conduit wiring or upgradable wall-stereos?
  • When you go through the inventory of "how to wire your house for < $20,000" and you've got less than $3,000 to spend before you complete the set.
    To think I could have got the bathroom done, an extension, new windows (which my new SO dreams about) and all I have is Web / WAP DSL X10 WiFi Multimedia mp3 DVD Divx Video-on-Demand VOIP 100 Mbps heaven. Oh, plus a further $$$ on a few credit cards.

    Hold on a moment..... None of those so-called chic-geeks didn't even mention VOIP

    I WIN !!

  • My favorite stores are.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jonny Ringo ( 444580 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @07:02PM (#4508577)
    this article will have you making a run to your favorite networking hardware store

    Some suggested stores:

    Networking Hardware USA
    Networking Hardware Emporium
    Hardware Networking Only, Inc.
    No We don't have any Computers, Just Networking Shit, Asshole! LLC

  • Determining the right infrastructure... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bovilexics ( 572096 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @07:03PM (#4508580) Homepage

    ... on a budget is a frustrating problem.

    Oh what a dream. Reading this article makes it all seem so joyous and wonderful. Especially when you don't have budget limitations and have the monetary freedom to completely scrap something that becomes obsolete in a couple of years and replace it with the latest and greatest thing out there. *Drool*

    Speaking from the experience of going through the ups and downs of building a new house this year - trying to determine what technologies to use now and how to leave room for future upgrades/changes with such obstacles as:

    1. A realistic budget
    2. An uninformed contractor
    3. Conflicting opinions from all directions

    It is tough to know where to jump in and what is cost effective and useful technology that can be expanded and upgraded without costing an arm and a leg.

    Typically a contractor is very informed about housing issues (plumbing, electrical, etc.) and can be a great source of information and recommendations but when it came to the tech infrastructure it was hard to find someone knowledgeable in the small town that I live in.

    I pretty much had to do all the research myself and inform him on what I thought would be best. It was all a little odd considering I'm not a builder by any stretch of the imagination.

    Ugh, makes my head hurt. We ended up going cat-5 with pre-wiring and space for wireless access points in the attic and conduit in the walls to pull fiber (or something else) later when it becomes feasible. It seemed best for us at the current time, hopefully it will continue to be a good decision a few years down the line.

    • Re:Determining the right infrastructure... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by glesga_kiss ( 596639 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @07:35PM (#4508801)
      We ended up going cat-5 with pre-wiring and space for wireless access points in the attic and conduit in the walls to pull fiber (or something else) later when it becomes feasible.

      There is always a place for cat-5, cheap and reliable. Even if you have wireless, hooking up two desktop PCs is a waste of RF bandwidth. If you are confident with a drill, go for it. In a few years, a home network might make a desireable selling point for a home.

      Like the idea about running conduit, very forward thinking.

  • yes, watching TV is a quite a lot of effort (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "The hi-def screen spoils you," says Cuban. "I can't watch regular TV anymore. It just isn't worth the effort."

    Quotes like that make me question the right-wing wisdom that concentrated wealth is good for the economy...

  • (To be honest, I'm less concerned with the legal issue than with the time it must have taken him to rip 1,000 CDs.)
    Hmm. Anyone care to do the math on this one?

    Assuming it took only 15 minutes to rip a CD, not counting time to switch CD's, set up the tracks, etc, it would take over 250 hours, or what amounts to a little over 10 days , non-stop, (Yeah... no eating, drinking, sleeping, whatever...) to rip those mp3 tracks...

    I'm frightened... do people seriously have that much time??? And where can I get some?

    • FreeDB->hit "rip"->go do something for 15 minutes->repeat

      It's pretty easy to do 20-30 CD's in a night when you're just sitting around watching TV or playing with the computer. I't snot like you have to be there for the whole entire rip, just to insert/eject CDs and make sure that EAC gets the right FreeDB entry. Can't say I've done 1000 CDs, but I've certainly done 100s, and it hasn't been a problem.
    • do people seriously have that much time??? And where can I get some?

      No excuses now; surely your sexual frustrations can't be a result time constraints.
    • [1000 CDs] Assuming it took only 15 minutes to rip a CD, not counting time to switch CD's, set up the tracks, etc, it would take over 250 hours, or what amounts to a little over 10 days , non-stop, (Yeah... no eating, drinking, sleeping, whatever...) to rip those mp3 tracks...

      Having ripped 400 or so CDs over the space of about a week without even trying very hard I think your estimates are somewhat off, because:

      • It doesn't usually take 15-minutes per CD with a good drive -- more like a quarter of that
      • Providing you have lots of disk space you can put off the time consuming bit (the encoding) until later (eg, overnight)
      • You can do other stuff at the same time you know; just change the CD when it ejects, and then go on with what you were doing.
      • Free hint: it is easy to parallelize the process. (I only used 2 machines, but a friend of mine used about 8 last time he had to rerip his collection.)

      Sounds to me that you don't need more time, you need better organisation :-)

  • Ubiquity of celebrity (Score:5, Funny)

    by polyphemus-blinder ( 540915 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @07:07PM (#4508617)
    Ah yes, just what I was lacking. Hollywood fiber-optic gossip and token rings of the rich and famous.
  • included in the article is a profile of JAG's Catherine Bell (my vote for sexiest geek),

    I'm sorry; everyone knows that the sexiest geek is currently Stevie Case, aka 'Killcreek'.

  • But why none of them have roomba?
  • For those who are just interested in the hot geek:

    here she is [wired.com]

    I can't see what the fuss is about myself....

  • To the rescue (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    For those of you hurting after hoping to see some geek chicks, here are some links. First up, some real hacker chicks: And now for the obligatory pics:
  • "New developments to watch for:

    PC-based PVRs

    Soon all digital video will be as easy to download and play as MP3s are today."

    Wow! Gosh! I am so looking forward to that day! That sounds so awesome and futuristic! Will there really come a day when digital video is as easy to download as an MP3 is today? Wow! I'm so amazed, shocked even! The future is such an exciting place!

    graspee

  • Realistic budget??? (Score:2, Informative)

    by ngoy ( 551435 )
    Wow, only 30K eh? I guess I will get a second mortgage on my house so I can be the low end of those who have WAAAAAAYYYY too much money to spend. Was there anything actually interesting in the article at all except that Tony Hawk has a chipped playstation so he can play burnt ps/2 games? There wasn't anything in the article that really pointed out anything extroadinary technology-wise.

    (Back to Reality Now) I wired my house recently (not a fun thing to do in Arizona mind you, at least when it is warm out). I put in two lines of CAT5, two lines of RG6, and one line of CAT3 for voice. Each of the bedrooms got a set, the living room got one, and the kitchen is next. Everything goes to my office (which used to be the family room before I walled it off) down from the attic to a structured media center box (whatever you call them) that I got for $10 from a surplus building supplier. It came with one telephone distribution module and I also got some extra 5 jack network modules from them too. So my Sprint MMDS internet connection goes into the room to my Linksys router, which then is plugged into the panel so the other rooms have internet connectivity. My phone line also runs into the panel and gets distributed to the other rooms. The panel can handle 4 pairs, so when my daughter gets old enough and assuming we are still using copper phone lines I can just punch down her phone line from the main house phone to her new line.

    I go to local auctions a lot, so I paid minimal prices for the cables and stuff, probably $10-$15 for the the CAT5 and CAT3 total, and $5 for the RG6 per spool (I have about a mile of coax now, don't know what the heck to do with it). I used Snap-N-Seal connectors for the cable, with connectors I got from Ebay, and the RJ stuff with a professional crimper set from Ebay as well (Sargent tools). So my total cost to wire my house myself? Less than $150.

    I have a friend who neglected to tell me he wanted to have his house done and it cost him over $500 for 3 or 4 ports with a hub. I would have done it for cost of parts and free food. Oh well, his loss.

    ngoy
    (Remember to wear a dust mask if you have an older house. That blown in insulation is nasty sh!t!)
  • Hi,

    The CDs are ripped into MP3s to play at Mr. Perlman's place? I thought MP3s are lossy and are scoffed at by audiophiles; the de riguer (in my mind) is SACDs or better instead of 192/256K sampled MP3s.

    And he ripped 1000 CDs to 15000 songs: that works to 15 songs per CD. So he likes all songs on all the CDs he owns. I want that CD list !!! ;-)

    Shriram

    • The SACD catalog selection is pretty small (relative to CD title selection). I imagine if you've already got 1000 cds it's conceivable that few of them are available on SACD, which would require you to look for them and buy them. No small feat (but either is ripping 1000 cds). You'd also be hard pressed to find a high capacity SACD changer that makes you happy.

      And while even 320K Mp3s may not be acoustically "perfect", having them indexed on a hard drive is sure a heck of a lot faster than running a playlist through a network of CD changers (and cheaper too).

  • They conveniently forgot Asia Carrera (Score:5, Informative)

    by slantyyz ( 196624 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @07:37PM (#4508822)
    Yes, the famous porn star [asiacarrera.com] is probably just as "hardcore" a geek as anyone in the Wired article, if not more. I bet none of those profiled builds their own systems, did their own web sites, kicks butt in UTK, has a 150 IQ [asiacarrera.com] and has starred in hundreds of high quality porn flicks. Oh yeah, Wired is a "family" magazine.
  • I read this article over the weekend. The bottom line is, any ultra-rich idiot can have an automated house full of cool gadgets, if they throw enough money at someone else to set it up for them. There's nothing particularly impressive about being able to write a check.

    I'd rather read about systems people put together themselves, consisting of parts attainable by someone who makes a modest salary.

    And yeah, Catherine Bell is a hottie, but she loses points for being married and a Scientologist.

    ~Philly

  • Wired is the Cosmopolitan of the Geek World (Score:5, Funny)

    by ziriyab ( 549710 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @07:42PM (#4508857)

    Every once in a while I'll pick up a wIrEd at an airport or whatever. This is shortly followed by memories of why I canceled my subscription years ago. In the same way that fashion mags set up these unreasonable (and arbitrary) expectations of what it means to be a woman, wired has set up this buy-buy-buy wannabe geek culture. Example:

    Sure, you might have DSL and Wi-Fi, an Xbox and a TiVo, maybe a Bang & Olufsen stereo with 5-foot speakers and a six-CD changer, but you're still an amateur in the world of extreme home networking

    Extreme home networking? Is that like extreme programming [hackles.org]? I had this burrito last night then I hunkered down for an evening of Extreme defecation

    The ad:article ratio in wired has to be as high as Cosmo's, not to mention the high number of thinly veiled ads in the fetish section. But, we do get insights like:

    Stored as 1s and 0s, music, video, and even television can share the same network.

    What insight! What's worse is that these freaks at the forefront of graphic design somehow manage to obscure deep insights like the above with layouts and graphics that make the articles unreadable. I had to hold this one article at an angle because the paper was reflective silver before finally giving up. I guess I'm not an extreme reader! Form over function in all they do.

    The preceding was an extreme /. post

    Spleen vented. whew.

    • I remember the first Wired I saw - it had an ad for one of the first cordless mice, featuring two babies - one in a diaper, on without. The first baby is smiling - under it is the caption "Feels good". The other baby is smiling, and we can see why - he is also urinating. He gets the caption "Feels better". The jist of the ad being that being unbound was better.

      But over time that attitude degenerated into "Ohh look at us - we are so tragicly hip we cannot see over our pelvis".

      So I let my subscription lapse - a fact that to this day Wired seems unwilling to let me forget ("Come on! Resubscribe! Please?")

      So, to sum it up:

      Tired: Wired.
      Wired: /. (well, it used to be, anyway.)
  • Why oh why in this good old country of ours (America) do the people with the most useless and pointless jobs get payed so much and buy all this stuff that they don't even use usually, while the the people with the most important jobs, like iron workers and electricians, get payed MUCH less? Just my $0.02
    PitViper401
  • Automatic climate control :
    Temperature and moisture sensor with wireless capabilities embedded into your clothes. They monitor your skins reactions to the temperature of the room and automatically adjust the room temperature so you feel comfortable :)

    Side effect : Geeks fighting over who gets a higher priority in a multi-user environment :)

  • Catherine Bell? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Misch ( 158807 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @08:50PM (#4509350) Homepage
    She's not as wired as she would be. She's in the Cult of Greed & Power [xenu.net] (Time, 1991). Which means she'll never go to that website there. She'll probably never go here [operatingthetan.com] either. I hope she doesn't end up here [whyarehteydead.net].

    How can a woman so tech savy get duped by them?
  • All these damn celebrities, All they do is watch TV, On a 58" Plasma screen. I can't go back to SDTV, It hurts my eyes, you see, This is how hard life can be. I'd like to see them spend a week, Posting as a slashdot geek, I don't think they would survive. If they could spend a day or two, Posting in a slashdotter's shoes, I think they'd be flamed and they'd fall, They would faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal.

  • even /. eh? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ender Ryan ( 79406 ) <TOKYO minus city> on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @08:56PM (#4509385) Journal
    Is it just me, or am I the only one who thinks that most "normal" people really don't give a flying fuck what "celebrities" do in their spare time? I may just be imagining it, but it seems to me that "celebrities" have been recently flaunting their "celebrity" status more so of late.

    Seriously, "celebrity" in America has really been pissing me off of late, with all the goddam "reality tv" shows trying to make "normal" people into "celebrities", American Idol(gag!), "star" after "star" on Good Morning America, tabloids having nothing but celebrity rumors(what the fuck ever happened to good ol' Pres. Bush meets Aliens stuff?), etc.?

    I refuse to believe that Americans really care so much about goddam celebrities; IMO, this is all just Hollywood pressure to keep themselves feeling like they're better than the average "joe", considering iMacs, free video editing tools, etc., becoming accessible to your average computer user must be making them piss their pants about their impending irrelevancy.

    Anyone else in the states notice this trend, or am I imaging things; I realize "celebrities" have always been pretentious fucks, but it seems even more so lately.

    Sorry, way OT I guess...

  • I wish I were geek enough to count, but seriously, folks...

    I had the summer off, and decided to set up an 802.11b net in my house as a project. It was swimmingly simple. Today, I received my $125 P90 Toshiba notebook and my Orinoco card, and now I have a cheap remote control for all my A/V needs. I'm gonna figure out a mounting scheme for a microphone stand (etc.) to set this beside my favorite chair in the crib.

    -oZ
  • Look at the damn unnecessary extravagance these people place into their lives. Sad Sad!
    Nobody deserves this much.

  • As the saying goes.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @09:45PM (#4509649)
    "Technology is like money....you know you have enough when you don't have to think about it..."

    Did it appear than anyone profiled in the article no longer thought about either? :)

  • Amazing! Not really... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by quantax ( 12175 ) on Tuesday October 22, 2002 @09:49PM (#4509667) Homepage
    Why are we impressed with any of this? If any of us had a virtual unlimited budget like these people, we could do a HELL of a lot more and not to mention do it ourselves. Quite frankly, people who throw a shitload of money at a problem/issue to solve it do not impress me. Someone who solves the problem in a both effecient AND practical manner are much more impressive. If Joe Millionare has the sickest network on the east coast, it is not because he is especially clever, intelligent, or anything else, it is because he hired a buncha techs to do it for him. Lets stick with admiring 'real' people doing 'real' stuff. Anyone with a crapload of money can do this sorta stuff. Slashdot should know this better than anyone.
  • "Peter Frampton has the same system!" Perlman shouts over the music. "If you listened to this as a 128K MP3, the cymbals would phase out. This is 192K!"
    Did anybody else think this was weird? I mean, If I could, I wouldn't even compress my audio. I'd just use a couple TB to store the highest quality versions of music I like. Or I'd hire a full-time DJ. And I'd make him give stuff away, as if he were on the radio.

    ...if you're caller number one you'll have free tickets to the [popular musician] show!...

    "Hello? Did I win?"

    Yes! What's your name, lucky c-

    "You're in my damn living room. You know my name."
  • All that EMR, particularily wireless stuff, is going to give the rich folks brain cancer.

    If you're throwing around $?0,000, why not get your very own T1? Cable is as high-end as the rich folks get soaked for?
  • For those of you who are just dying to string "fiber around your entire house"

    That's one masturbation euphinism I've not heard before. Slashdot sure gets +1 for originality, I'll say.

  • missing from the article (Score:4, Insightful)

    by alizard ( 107678 ) <alizard&ecis,com> on Wednesday October 23, 2002 @03:05AM (#4510889) Homepage
    The only time I saw security mentioned in the article was in the context of security cams.

    What's wrong with this picture?

    Does anybody here think that a static IP owned by Catherine Bell or Tony Hawk is any less likely to wind up designating a network 0wn3d by any number of people than one connected to an AOL broadband user with the usual level of home security?

    While I'd be very surprised to find that Larry Ellison's home network wasn't designed for security first by the smartest bunch of paranoids he can hire, from what I saw in the article, I'd be equally surprised to find that the opposite isn't true for most of these systems.

    The results of this article's posting to /. should be very, very interesting. I wonder how many of these networks have already been r00ted and how many people are heading for Beverly Hills with wireless laptops checking things out since the article was posted?

    Any hardcore security types who know the high-end installers in this business probably should give them an e-mail very, very soon... there's some serious money to be made here.

    And anyone who's got the kind of money who's reading this should think of how to secure their networks before ordering their home T-3.

    • Supposedly Catherine Bell's house will have one AP per room

      Considering that there only 3 non-overlapping 802.11b channels, this means that her APs will most likely be interfering with each other. In a house like that, probably at least 3 APs on each channel in close proximity to each other.

      The problems won't be as much if she's using 11a - More nonoverlapping channels and shorter range. But in many cases so short as to cause room coverage issues in a larger room...

  • what annoyies me is (Score:3, Funny)

    by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportlandNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Wednesday October 23, 2002 @03:42AM (#4510987) Homepage Journal
    that now its the things you own that makes you a geek.
    Woo-hoo, I just paid a guy 10 grand to install a system! I'm a geek!

    Fortunately for me, I'm a nerd, so I have to get by on my brains.
  • Converting from one speed to the other was robbing Perlman of his crisp high end! [...] "The hi-def screen spoils you," says Cuban. "I can't watch regular TV anymore. It just isn't worth the effort."

    I can't watch regular TV anymore because the content (mostly) sucks.

    These people confuse the medium with the message. A scratchy mono recording of Casals playing the Bach Suites beats pretty much all of that over-processed digital entertainment that this gear is designed for.

  • Overpriced.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Junta ( 36770 ) on Wednesday October 23, 2002 @08:58AM (#4511792)
    Bleh, all this waste, even in the 'do-it-yourself' section.

    Without spending nearly so much, especially in a smaller home, you can get a lot. The key thing here is they suggest buying lots of small, dedicated pieces of equipment, and only two computers, and not even fully utilizing them!

    Take that 'dedicated server' and make it a bit beefier. I built a fairly cheap (~1100 USD) server with 4 120 GB drives in RAID-5 config about a year ago. Up that a bit and your server can hold oggs and video like crazy, are even go FLAC if you are extreme audiophile. Put it next to your Entertainment system, and it can do PVR/Video/Progressive Scan functions. Eliminate the need for a lot of things. Run your internet connection through it, no more need for a separate router. Buy a cheaper USB wireless adapter and make it an Access Point with more control (why settle for mere WEP, when you can enforce IPSEC?). With all this functionality, a decent soundcard can dump anything you want to any receiver, so a lot of the digital-to-stereo equipment goes bye-bye. If concerned about control, buy a cheap-o lirc-compatible device.

    The display is pretty decent, though I would think an entry-level projector might offer a better deal. The home automation stuff I have no experience with, though I would opt for an IP based camera and have my computer doing motion sensing when I leave the house (sending shots via VPN to a friends house in case the system is stolen).

    The network solutions they suggest seem to hover around 11 mbps, same rate as wireless, why bother? If you want better than that, wire your house with some cat5 or better cable. 100 mbps is much more livable for streaming video than 11, and if you are really big on it, gigabit is *doable* at great expense.

    Why would any house need a *rack* of servers? My household has a laptop per person, a desktop per person, and a single server handling routing/nfs/samba/apache/icecast/etc.... I plan to add one system to do multimedia stuff in the entertainment system, but that's it. The laptops+desktops are extravagant, but nice...
  • Most of what was in the article was audio/video systems, and computer networking. Everybody has that, these people just have the more expensive versions. I was hoping for more qualitatively novel stuff.

    The vacuum-cleaner robot from a couple days ago is novel, plus it's useful. Popular-Mechanics-style home automation (dimming the windows, opening and closing drapes in response to weather or sun position) would be interesting.

    In the early 70s there was a magazine article about a guy whose two dogs couldn't stand each other. He built a system that automatically opened and closed doors in the house, keeping track of where the dogs were, and never allowing them into the same room simultaneously. No microprocessors back then.

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