Scott Jones, the CEO of human powered voice/sms search engine ChaCha (our recent coverage), has one of the awesomest computer setups I’ve seen.
It can be seen, along with everything else in his house, in this MTV Teen Cribs video (also embedded below) that focuses on his fifteen year old son. For the computer, jump to the 3:25 mark.
They don’t say anything about the processor, but the guy has an eight-screen (Dell) setup and stationary bike pedals to get exercise while working.
To get more details, I’ve sent a text message to ChaCha asking for the hardware specs (they love answering random questions). Their tagline is “answers to anything, on the go” so this should be no problem. Alas, it’s been ten minutes and there’s no response. I’ll update later if they do.
Thanks for the tip Shawn.
Update: Ok, ChaCha’s awake now and talking to me. No answer yet but I’ll add screen shots of messages as they come in.
Update 2: We’ve got our answer! 3.4 GHz P4 CPU, 2 GB RAM, 8x Dell 19 in. monitors, Colorgraphic Xentera GT display with ATI, Schwinn 205p recumb bike, Ergotron frame.
Now THAT’S surprising! I’d love to know about all the hardware too, keep us posted!
who in there right mind would name a company chacha and be serious about it.
That is the most worthless setup ever. Who the hell cares that you have 8 monitors?
Most productive UI enhancement work gets done when you have a “broad canvas”. that’s the simple idea behind erstwhile black*boards* in colleges and present day white boards in companies – helps increase your concentration on the task at hand and gives you sense of the bigger purpose all the time- makes you catch the gotchas early, improves design due to visual exposure of multiple points of the design.
Ever wondered why sportsmen especially baseball batters with wide vision and a mind view of the entire field, score better?
Played the English game of cricket?
Played football as a midfielder?
Why do you think field games and strategy games which show wider areas are liked by intelligent people (scores near 3.5 – 4 GPA)
Why does a widescreen become addictive?
Why do people just dig panorama photos?
8 monitors isn’t the thing. 8 monitors to make a panoramic view is the thing – your brain works must better and remains much sharper with wider screens – ummmm – why does KDE ship with 4 desktops by default? The KDE gang is pretty good at UI and HCI, if you note the success of the KDE platform as such.
Landscape photos are often impressive – why?
Bottom line: We *can* see the bigger picture, but our two eyes limit the ability of our brain by being a visual bottleneck to higher association of ideas.
Ever tried just sitting at the subway and watching people during rush hour traffic in New York – it is a highly enlightening experience. Dont screw your eyeballs out – they are low resolution, delicate, focussed instruments – instead imagine with closed eyes. – just awesome to grok all that information – that is where these 8 monitors are heading.
sorry, you asked for it
One of my friends (from Dallas) has a 12 monitors setups…and that since over 3 years ago: http://flickr.c...57600447503174/
I’m so jealous! This would have been amazing to have when working in Maya. =(
sweet! Now all he needs is 4 pairs of eyes?
http://www.newgadgetsguru.com
saw a similar console with http://www.directi.com CEO as well…:) he he he. geeky cool feel, it gives. Even though the person behind the wheel might be solving a simple business problem only…!!
Hi Marvin,
you talk of Bhavin? You know him? Maybe you also go to the ICANN Meetigs and TRAFFIC, Domainfests, Domainroundtables and such? Then maybe we both know each other as well? Have you been at any of these conferences: http://www.schu...nfo/conferences ?
Didn’t knew Bhavin has also 8 Monitors, have to aks him….
I’d love to know about all the hardware too, keep us posted!
__________________________
http://kisalt.net/d2
Is that running Win2K or am I just having horrible blue background LSD flashbacks!?!?!?!
see update
You have a good point about the company there.
Funnily enough, I calculate the screen real-estate of 8 x 17″ or 19″ screens (which is what they look like) to just 10,485,760 or about 25% more than only 2 x 30″ displays which, I feel, is arguably more useful and cost-effective.
those must be bigger than 19″ right? I’ll ask ChaCha. oh, wait nevermind.
They look like 24″ at most, but I wanna say 19″. I second Wayne’s comment that 2×30″ is the optimal working environment.
HI,
you are right! 26″ 8 times is the minimum. Better is 10 times 30″, in 90 degrees pivot mode. Thats my next project, once http://www.my-desktop.info is not anymore meeting my brains dimensions. (please be aware of satiric elements in that posting).
He must be getting a tough time doing exercise and work. I doubt these seats helps in exercise , what about work? i think this really disturbs the work flow
Considering how wasteful and downright excessive their CEO is, I’d say that we’ll see ChaCha in a dead pool soon.
And this has nothing to do with the fact that their service is quite useless. Outsourcing searches to some less then minimum wage person… yeah, you’ll get back some quality ‘answers’!
the service is cool (tonight notwithstanding). and anyone who can afford an 8 monitor computer is absolutely within their rights to get one.
Haha, really. ChaCha is a human version of http://letmegoo...r+specification.
I agree. Jealously is ugly.
Flaunting wealth is also ugly.
Excessive? With is OWN money? Are you out of your mind? Plus this is Indiana we’re talking about not overpriced Bay Area bubble.
Its one thing for moron CEOs who spend investors money buying crap, but totally another when its your own money you’re talking about.
Plus you should see Bill Gates, Dell’s or Ellison’s houses.
awesome!
…sorry that actually looks like a nightmare setup. how does he maintain focus with 9 huge monitors screaming for attention? No doubt in order to justify the excess, he probably finds ways to use each one while diminishing his productivity.
Now if you said all nine were combined to enable a touch screen computing device, *that* would be a cool setup.
monitor 1: R thumb.
monitor 2: L thumb.
monitor 3. R index.
monitor 4. L index.
etc…
Hahahaha I love the “ChaCha is fail” part!
Wall Street guys regularly have this many monitors.
But… I have to say… He has 8 monitors and one of them is dedicated to all of the icon crap he’s dumped on his Windows desktop. Does this not make sense as to why they can’t respond to your question Mike?
My favorite is when people make a custom background to hold the icons they need on their desktop. Then someone in IT rearranges them.
Like in this classic for example:
http://www.thew...bsiteisdown.com
lol. This was very funny
42″ Vizio HD TV’s also make AWESOME monitors.
Now if I could just figure out how to build my swivel-over-the-bed 10+ monitor setup…even the digitaltigers guys didn’t know where to find / build that.
Oh wow…I thought I had to be the only workaholic enough person to work from a exercise bike to avoid having to stop typing & working to go exercise…but this guy does, too.
He don’t look like much of an exerciser.
42″ Vizio HD TV’s have a real BAD resolution. Its usually the same resolution a standart notbook has. The screen might ge HUGe, but it only works with TV. Attach a PC and you see next to nothing.
Well 10 is the right number: Companies like PNY make systems that support up to 10 monitors. You would have to buy two 4time cards, and one 2time card. It’s not any more expensive. When I did first in 2004, the 4time cards costst each the same like a complete PC. Now they are cheap.
Look for PNY graphic cards! Those that support 4 monitors.
This seems more egotistical than useful.
Definitely seems like he just feels productive rather than being productive. Checking email + working at the same time is just not effective.
What are you talking about, crazy man? He’s the CEO, he’s down in the trenches EVARY GOL DING DONG DURN DAY. Those monitors are for his exceptional skills at navigating the ever-shifting landscape of Web 3.0, helping seven users at the same time find the information they need to live their lives and run their businesses. Also: porn.
Why does the guy in the background in the lower left picture look like a Second Life avatar?
Lol 8 monitors… He probably has 16 eyes as well!!
ha ha!
http://stuckinf...es.blogspot.com
That monitor set up is sweet. Kind of reminds me of the one from Dark Knight.
scott was the main investor behind gracenote and is also an investor and on the board of MOG. he’s a super guy and i’ve been to this house many times. it’s STELLAR!!!!
You do know that Gracenote’s business model was born on a foundation of theft, right? You’d best protex ur bidness.
I need this at home for my 360 set up!
BestJobsOnline
http://tinyurl.com/7uj5ay
The benefit of all this screen real estate are diminished by how far he is sitting from the screen. To make out anything at such distance he must be using bigger fonts and icons, so actual screen resolution is much lower than it could be. I would argue that couple of 19″ LCDs should be enough for most people.
Sorry to say so, but this is blabla. I use 8 26″, and I use no other font size than you. BUT, I wear glasses, and option that could maybe be a solution for you, too! Do you hate me now?
Let’s see:
3 pieces of advertising content shown ($)
11 SMS exchanged (traffic generated for carrier, they may get cut of this as well)
0 useful information provided to user
Sounds like pretty typical startup…
This kind of “cool” setup always amuses me. more than 2 monitors are just distraction.
My dear, have you tried it? People not familiar with juggling would say the same: Two balls is OK, more is distracting. The expert however likes to juggle with more than two balls.
I gave both my secretary and my girlfriend each a 4 monitor setup, and both cannot work anymore without 4 monitors.
BTW: I have heard there is a set of keystrokes to switch between aplications: Never used it
yes. Try doing work that requires use of brain cells.
So Michael…did you win the Wii or what?
And somewhere Tyler is getting an email “Hey get me that, but bigger!”
here is mine, only 5 more to go
http://flickr.c...57608356637491/
Check out his christmas light setup: http://www.yout...h?v=I7Smmq6ADpg
love the screen shots. the monitor stand ALONE is way more than i can afford lol
updated the post – we have the hardware specs.
bottomline, chacha is getting huge and would hardly call them a start up. http://www.wire...ms_service.html
not bad…they actually went out and got you that info, even though it was slow. If it can get good answers to tough questions even if takes a couple hours, that’s not bad. I wonder what it’s limits are? …Can I get Michael Arrington’s private home phone please?
I asked the question and had to signup, and the email they sent me had “root” as the subject. That’s pretty weak for a service that’s been around that long. Isn’t the point of all those screens to be able to be on top of many things and get all the details, e.g. the subject of auto-responder emails!
Our startup originated in Indiana, and his house and toys are a kind of lore. He has a website dedicated to it:
http://scottajo...php?q=residence
He also has a geek van with a mobile office in it:
http://scottajo...q=digitalwheels
Nice setup, though I wonder whether using 30″ monitors would’ve made more sense.
Well, 8 times 19″ is really cool, but I think much cooler is 8 times 26″…..
I constructed a special desktop for that, not the fancy frame the CEO has.
Next thing I will do is to have 10 (ten) 30″ (thirty) in pivot mode (90 degrees tilted).
See my liitle desktop at http://www.my-desktop.info
BTW: My secondary PC has only 4 screens, and its HARD to work at it. I cannot imagine how a human is able to work at ONE screen, It’s similar to waterboarding or living in Gaza.
What? There is no way you will be productive with 8 monitors. You even made a web site for it? To show off your 8 monitors? I think you have ego problem.
And comparing use of a single monitor to water boarding or living in Gaza? Are you retarded?
You’re too funny with the four wall clocks. Can’t you just do the math?
I would rather work off of two high quality S-PVA 30″ monitors running off of a proper GPU than 8 crappy 19″ Dells running off of a card holding 4 junky chips. The bike is cool though.
How does ChaCha work?
First they send you 5 premium text messages and then you’ll get your answer!
See below 12 screen trafficking @ the eBuddy office in Amsterdam
http://www.flic...57594398686389/
We used to regularly have dealers in the city with 16 monitor setups. One smart alec once requested a 16×1 combination so he could run his chair up and down the row.
Well that is what he thought until he came in and we’d config’d it up 1 x 16. Thats 16 CRT’s one on top of each other
, sadly back in the 90’s before everyone had camera phones and digital cameras.
Oh wow fine site but how does chacha work.
Silly, wasteful setups like this are WHY some startups are having issues. An 8-monitor setup isn’t going to be that productive, despite the “coolness” factor.
Hmm…. 8 monitors, 8 eyes …..
He is Spiderman!
For those of you who don’t know, Scott Jones was essentially one of the original inventors of voice mail technology, and holds several patents. Just Google his name or check out his WIki page.
He build a replica of NORAD in his basement out of his own pocket if he wanted to.
That’s a pretty wussy computer to be pumping out 8 monitors…consider me impressed!
you guys should check out Digital Tigers (http://www.digi...ndex.asp?bhcp=1). They have really awesome display arrays.
The specs of the PC alone should indicate to some of you tards who talk about wasting a startup’s money that the setup is actually quite old – probably why it’s not two 30″ monitors as well.
I hope I have something like this one day.
1.5 words: Flight Sim
4 words : One frame per second.
So beyond the fancy monitor grid, the underlying computer hardware is old garbage. A P4 and 2GB RAM? lol.
Sweet Computer , perfect for chilling and working… Sounds like Jason wants a gaming machine… At least it is running windows XP pro and not vista …. CHACHA Rocks