I have access to a very large internet connection, and an array of servers. I would like to host something like that so it does not just die off. Do we think the community could do that? What would be needed would be some coder(s) to work on the front end and db. Unless of course Dice wants to fork ove the code (unlikely). I could think of a good domain name and just do it. Hell, I have an array of domain names as it is...
I think this has been mentioned here, but wanted to point out from first hand experience... I have a BS in EECE, an MS in Physics, and I took all those damn courses to get a Ph.D. in EECE (yet to finish dissertation)... as I was going through the Ph.D. program, I witnessed a number of my classmates getting interns at Intel/AMD/etc. Not to be racial (cultural?) but I am a native born anglo-saxon american. All of my classmates are Indian/Asian. I note that I could not get an intern/etc with big companies. My grades were comparable (better), and I had some experience having worked a little between degrees.
A few points. I know a number of these classmates that went on to get jobs at Intel/AMD/Motorola/etc. These are Ph.D.s in EE/EECE/CS. They are paying these guys $37000-$47000 to start, but they give them an H1B visa (or extension), so they are totally happy to take that pay. I am sorry to say it, but a "normal" american who just spent a good deal of cash on this degree just can not get by on this. No offense to any Indian guys (in fact, this is where you have an advantage) but 20 of them can live in a single apartment due to their culture/lifestyle. They have no problems getting $40,000 to start as a Ph.D, where most americans (for better or worse) would balk at that. I was told by one classmate who went on to work at Intel that they practically don't even look at americans for work anymore at that level as they want more to start./rant Interestingly, since we americans are no longer going into Ph.D.s in EE/EECE, this creates a catch 22 for the CEOs to go to the govt with. "look, no one is going into the Ph.D. program, give us more H1Bs!"... go look at (for example) Intels job pages. They want Ph.D.s in EE/EECE in mostly other countries now. We will eventually no longer manufacture or design anything here, but for the time being if it helps big companies bottom lines, they will never care if they are destroying us. We will wake up and no one will know how to build or design things here, and then all will be lost. rant/
td;dl, Companies don't pay as they know H1Bs are cheap, no one goes in due to low wages, a manager at McDonalds can make more. Obama/Congress can not fix that, as they are paid by the same companies saying we need more H1Bs. Hey, I could go be a professor when it is done, but I could make more money asking if you want fries with that at the drive through.
Well, as someone who has a B.S. in EE and an M.S. in Physics and then took all of the course work to get a Ph.D. in EE but left before I wrote my dissertation, I think I could comment on all of this.
First off, the stats that people give could be correct, and it could just be a population thing. What perhaps amazes me is that this person is in the program, obviously surrounded by indians and chinese people and he feels that he should not ask them? I talked to countless people from China, India, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Turkey, Russia, etc about why they chose to study here. Interestingly, the Chinese told me it was "for their country". They literally wanted to learn more and go back to China and better their country in any way they could (build better computers, electronics, etc). The people that I talked to from India were half and half... half of them wanted a job in the US, half of them wanted a job _anywhere_ to send the cash back home. Most people from other countries told me it was due to either fierce competition back home, or the prestige that the rest of the world still thinks the US has good schools. (this can not be for long as China will soon have more Ph.D. hodlers than anyone, if they do not already).
So why did I, a native born white american leave the program? After our second summer of me not getting a job and _all_ of my indian counterparts getting interns at Intel, AMD, IBM, etc, (we all had the same classes and education, and in fact I had some prior experience to boot) I had a realization that US companies just want cheap labor. Literally, I had a Ph.D. student from Lebanon get hired on by Intel for $40k a year. _$40k_ a year for a Ph.D. in Comp. Eng!! What's more this guy knew his stuff, but he thought $40k was great as he would never get that back home. Me, they would not even talk to me. Why go on and spend two years writing a book when you will not get hired on anyway??
US, you keep complaining about US students not going into grad EE or ME or Physics... its because your corporate america companies will not hire us. Not when Student X from India will do the job for $30k a year and you claim to congress that you can find no good help.
You must be the fastest typist in the known universe...
We will later have to google: how to type a three page long sarcastic remark in such time as to still be able to submit it to a/. posting and have it be first post.
I was interviewed by google three times, then told told me to #$%^ off (well, ok, just that they would never again contact me)...
I think their job hunting ideals are odd at best. For instance, I have a BS in EE an MS in Physics and I took all of the courses to get a Doctorate in computer engineering. I think I know a little, but ok, I have been beat down and humbled by my profs before, so I know on the scope of things I do not really know jack, but still, suffice it to say, I know a few things about HW and SW. What was odd is the following, I was interviewing for sysadmin, I know: with my background?, but I worked my way through college and for an international company as a sysadmin. The interview kept getting deeper and deeper on odd levels. We started to chat about algorithms and soon it was "please derive this recursion algorithm from first principles" ok, I did it (I took a few algorithm classes) but I kept thinking why would a unix sysadmin need this? It was kind of strange... I think with the three interviews I derived 6 sorting algorithms for them. Uh, right, cuz I lost a file on the main server and I need to find it quickly? None of the guys asked anything about processes, memory management, OS speeds, pipes, networking, etc. It was all searching and basic math/algorithms.
I know it has been covered here before, but I think if you apply for Google you should apply for something you _don't_ want to do, perhaps it will turn out ok...
I had a friend that did a few electrical engineering interns at NASA, and he was a good engineer. He was once told by a Sr. Engineer that you could take the schematic of the elctrical control system of the entire shuttle and draw a huge X anywhere you want on it, at random or not, then go out to the shuttle and cut every wire that the X crossed and all systems on the shuttle would still function 100% due to the massive amount of redundancy built into the system.
My friend said after seeing most of the schematics for the shuttle, he belives the above statement to be true.
Now if only my software could be so robust... or is it my coffee?
Ok, I see all of this virtualization going on, but I keep thinking about a burning question... The x86 iunstruction set and architecture was invented some time ago (286, Intel, 1982), and although it has been added to and improved upon by both AMD and Intel, one has to wonder if it is the correct platform for performing virtualization, or for virtualization in general.
I mean, ok, it is a slightly big deal to design a new CPU (and I know, I took all the Ph.D. courses on CPU design), but think about it. We are trying to make a nice old (vintage? classic?) CPU and instruction set good for virtualization. I think now is the time to step back and say "hey, we can do better. Lets get a bunch of good CPU designers and _thinkers_ (call Google?) to design an architecture that works well for virtualization, then port linux to it" Ok, we can invite Tannenbaum too and port Minix. Maybe call plan9 too.
At any rate, the point is if we are going to really use virtualization, lets do it 100% and not half-ass like we always tend to.
Oh, wait up, we should just call IBM. They have been virtualizing for years. Lets get them to design us a good high speed cpu for that.
Hey man, STFU... I have a BS in EE (from a real college) and a MS in Physics (again, from a real college) and I have been jobless for some time now. 15 years unix experience, analog design experience, worked in phyics labs, particle accelerators, etc, etc, and I can not get a job anywhere.
Take your "waaahhh, mommy, mommy I am doing too much" article and stuff it. At least you are pulling a check.
"...long term you are almost assured to find a healthy career waiting for you."
Don't belive that for a second. I have a BS in EECE/CompSci, MS in Physics, and took all of the courses to get a Ph.D. in Computer Eng. I have 15 years unix experience, 10 years hands on sysadmin experience, can design and write software, and in fact hardware at the device level.
When I was in the Ph.D. program, people from other countries were getting the internships, job offers, etc. The four (out of almost 200) grad students who were "local" to this country did not get jack, myself included. I was told by a friend of mine who went to work at Intel that they were not hiring US citizens, as it costs too damn much.
So there, I said it. I was born here, went to college here, gained expeience here... And 1.5 years and 1000s of resumes (with college degrees and experience and all) later, I am still without employment in the US.
Like the other comment mentioned, knowing a second language may not be a bad thing right now.
It would have been nice to release the source code for the client, eh? Now all of my idle cpu clocks on all of my dual cpu sun machines will still go to waste heating the house instead of helping mankind. (the client is AMD or Wintel x86 only).
I suppose the apple guys are in the same camp until 2006 (apple-tel?) also...
As a Ph.D. student in Computer Engineering, I can attest to the fact that schools today lack a requisite in math and sci. As an undergrad I took more math as I knew I was going to go for an M.S. in Physics. In physics, I took even more math to stay on top of the courses. Now in my Ph.D., it scares me to see EEs and CEs at the M.S. and Ph.D. level that do not know matrix algebra, differential equations or numerical analysis.
Listen up, if you are going to go into any engineering major or science major, take more math. It can only help you. (even if you do not use it, you will learn to look at problems in a different light).
Many people make them, and they are real oscopes on a PCI card... but the ones I have used were GaGe...
http://www.gage-applied.com/
Should not be too pricey, and I think they have educational discounts. They are the best option I have seen to get a real oscope in a computer, and the sampling rate and digitization will beat a sound card hands down.
Given the many ways in which I can make a machine a passive listening device on the LAN to gather information (even in a switched environment), do you see future security focusing on authentication mechanisims on the LAN, even for the simplest of things (e.g. to get connected to a switch, to allow a MAC address, etc)? Going to a larger scale, do you see something like this taking place on the WAN? Lets say (putting on my lets get nasty hat) Microsoft Palladium (.net, NM$FPSG, whatever they call it now) authentication + your MAC addres s just to get connected to the net?
Even then, I think it is more of a "what you are after" situation. For instance, the chipset itself can dramatically change the performance. As well as ram, etc, etc... so the idea is are you benching the CPUs against each other or the CPU/chipset/RAM system against each other? Even then the question is "how do I verify that the results are not skewed based on the testing methodoligy?"
We need better testing. You can not (really)
expect the same test to give you a good judgement, and then on the other hand, having different test for each CPU would obviously not give you a good judgement... Hmm, perhaps some speed testing on regular apps. I know they do that on quake and the like, but then that was written for a specific architecture also. Just a thought.
Ahead of its time then... a little lamish on the effects by todays standards, but it was great. As I have no cable I have no idea what is on now... Does anyone really watch Cable?? I thought all these/. people were DVDers...
You forget, oh grasshopper, that you speak of electron drift. The electrons will drift in a wire much more slowly than the electric and magnetic field that we are (incorrectly as EEs do) calling current.
Let us not wander into the discussion of electron drift verses actual arrival of elctric voltage potential as indeed that is the way to craploads of math that I will have to spew at you, and therefore insanity.
Cheers.
As someone who has "gone down the road to hi-fi" so to speak, I see a lot of reviews/interviews that look at the megabuck systems. You can actually get close to that for a fraction of the cost, say about 1500-2000. That seems reasonable to me, considering that the gear will last long enough so that if you purchased "consumer" gear you would need to replace it enough to make up the difference.
As a note, stated previously about price depreciation in high end audio, the other good thing is that the service what they sell to the death. My (multi kilobuck) amp is 20years old last month and I can call Audio Research and get every part ever made for it, and still get service. Try that with a (insert your common mid-fi stereo here) unit.
Ah, enough with the good things... it is still hard to justify buying an amp/cdplayer/preamp/speakers that costs more than a new car.:)
I will agree with the argument of C(++) being used
as it gets one closer to the hardware, however,
as someone who took the CS courses some time ago, I think that a CS course should teach fundamentals and be language independant. Of course at one point you have to actually use a language, but that should be a means to an end to be determined by one who knows the fundamentals. I may be getting off an a tangent here as it did mention it was an advanced course, but when I went through (hell) it was elementary structure etc. Getting back to the subject at hand, I think that C(++) has been time tested... should we just switch at a whim? It was not too long ago that we were all quiche eating ba#$%!#ds in those courses.
If the bandwidth of the bus is 12Mb/s, theoretically a good 1Mb/s can be achieved (overhead/etc) for actual data. This could lead to a nice stream of 128Kb/s or greater in audio format. Now all one needs is two good mics, one by each ear and a microdrive and interface and you have da bomb portable recording station. What goes down on track is exactly what you hear, no big bulky rigs etc. Just a thought.
Slashdot Mirror
I have access to a very large internet connection, and an array of servers. I would like to host something like that so it does not just die off. Do we think the community could do that? What would be needed would be some coder(s) to work on the front end and db. Unless of course Dice wants to fork ove the code (unlikely). I could think of a good domain name and just do it. Hell, I have an array of domain names as it is...
Anyone up for it?
I think this has been mentioned here, but wanted to point out from first hand experience... I have a BS in EECE, an MS in Physics, and I took all those
damn courses to get a Ph.D. in EECE (yet to finish dissertation)... as I was going through the Ph.D. program, I witnessed a number of my classmates getting interns at Intel/AMD/etc. Not to be racial (cultural?) but I am a native born anglo-saxon american. All of my classmates are Indian/Asian. I note that I could not get an intern/etc with big companies. My grades were comparable (better), and I had some experience having worked a little between degrees.
A few points. I know a number of these classmates that went on to get jobs at Intel/AMD/Motorola/etc. These are Ph.D.s in EE/EECE/CS. They are paying these guys $37000-$47000 to start, but they give them an H1B visa (or extension), so they are totally happy to take that pay. I am sorry to say it, but a "normal" american who just spent a good deal of cash on this degree just can not get by on this. No offense to any Indian guys (in fact, this is where you have an advantage) but 20 of them can live in a single apartment due to their culture/lifestyle. They have no problems getting $40,000 to start as a Ph.D, where most americans (for better or worse) would balk at that. I was told by one classmate who went on to work at Intel that they practically don't even look at americans for work anymore at that level as they want more to start. /rant
Interestingly, since we americans are no longer going into Ph.D.s in EE/EECE, this creates a catch 22 for the CEOs to go to the govt with. "look, no one is going into the Ph.D. program, give us more H1Bs!"... go look at (for example) Intels job pages. They want Ph.D.s in EE/EECE in mostly other countries now. We will eventually no longer manufacture or design anything here, but for the time being if it helps big companies bottom lines, they will never care if they are destroying us. We will wake up and no one will know how to build or design things here, and then all will be lost.
rant/
td;dl, Companies don't pay as they know H1Bs are cheap, no one goes in due to low wages, a manager at McDonalds can make more. Obama/Congress can not fix that, as they are paid by the same companies saying we need more H1Bs. Hey, I could go be a professor when it is done, but I could make more money asking if you want fries with that at the drive through.
After the second time they would have someone sitting in there all
the time with this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S&W_Model_500
Awwww yeah...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxLmiYiwvus
Take my server now bro!! I dare ya!
Well, as someone who has a B.S. in EE and an M.S. in Physics and then took all of the course work to
get a Ph.D. in EE but left before I wrote my dissertation, I think I could comment on all of this.
First off, the stats that people give could be correct, and it could just be a population thing.
What perhaps amazes me is that this person is in the program, obviously surrounded by indians
and chinese people and he feels that he should not ask them? I talked to countless people
from China, India, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Turkey, Russia, etc about why they chose to study here.
Interestingly, the Chinese told me it was "for their country". They literally wanted to learn
more and go back to China and better their country in any way they could (build better computers,
electronics, etc). The people that I talked to from India were half and half... half of them wanted
a job in the US, half of them wanted a job _anywhere_ to send the cash back home. Most people from
other countries told me it was due to either fierce competition back home, or the prestige that
the rest of the world still thinks the US has good schools. (this can not be for long as China
will soon have more Ph.D. hodlers than anyone, if they do not already).
So why did I, a native born white american leave the program? After our second summer of me
not getting a job and _all_ of my indian counterparts getting interns at Intel, AMD, IBM, etc,
(we all had the same classes and education, and in fact I had some prior experience to boot)
I had a realization that US companies just want cheap labor. Literally, I had a Ph.D. student from
Lebanon get hired on by Intel for $40k a year. _$40k_ a year for a Ph.D. in Comp. Eng!! What's more this
guy knew his stuff, but he thought $40k was great as he would never get that back home. Me,
they would not even talk to me. Why go on and spend two years writing a book when you will
not get hired on anyway??
US, you keep complaining about US students not going into grad EE or ME or Physics... its
because your corporate america companies will not hire us. Not when Student X from India will
do the job for $30k a year and you claim to congress that you can find no good help.
You must be the fastest typist in the known universe...
/. posting and have it be first post.
We will later have to google: how to type a three page long sarcastic remark in such
time as to still be able to submit it to a
You are commended, but for what we have no idea.
I was interviewed by google three times, then told told me to #$%^ off (well,
ok, just that they would never again contact me)...
I think their job hunting ideals are odd at best. For instance, I have a
BS in EE an MS in Physics and I took all of the courses to get a Doctorate
in computer engineering. I think I know a little, but ok, I have been beat down
and humbled by my profs before, so I know on the scope of things I do not really
know jack, but still, suffice it to say, I know a few things about HW and SW.
What was odd is the following, I was interviewing for sysadmin, I know: with my
background?, but I worked my way through college and for an international company
as a sysadmin. The interview kept getting deeper and deeper on odd levels. We
started to chat about algorithms and soon it was "please derive this recursion
algorithm from first principles" ok, I did it (I took a few algorithm classes)
but I kept thinking why would a unix sysadmin need this? It was kind of strange...
I think with the three interviews I derived 6 sorting algorithms for them. Uh,
right, cuz I lost a file on the main server and I need to find it quickly? None
of the guys asked anything about processes, memory management, OS speeds, pipes,
networking, etc. It was all searching and basic math/algorithms.
I know it has been covered here before, but I think if you apply for Google you should
apply for something you _don't_ want to do, perhaps it will turn out ok...
I had a friend that did a few electrical engineering interns at NASA, and he was a good engineer.
He was once told by a Sr. Engineer that you could take the schematic of the elctrical control
system of the entire shuttle and draw a huge X anywhere you want on it, at random or not, then go out
to the shuttle and cut every wire that the X crossed and all systems on the shuttle would still function
100% due to the massive amount of redundancy built into the system.
My friend said after seeing most of the schematics for the shuttle, he belives the above statement
to be true.
Now if only my software could be so robust... or is it my coffee?
Ok, I see all of this virtualization going on, but I keep thinking about a burning question...
The x86 iunstruction set and architecture was invented some time ago (286, Intel, 1982),
and although it has been added to and improved upon by both AMD and Intel, one has to wonder
if it is the correct platform for performing virtualization, or for virtualization in general.
I mean, ok, it is a slightly big deal to design a new CPU (and I know, I took all the Ph.D.
courses on CPU design), but think about it. We are trying to make a nice old (vintage? classic?)
CPU and instruction set good for virtualization. I think now is the time to step back and
say "hey, we can do better. Lets get a bunch of good CPU designers and _thinkers_ (call Google?)
to design an architecture that works well for virtualization, then port linux to it" Ok, we
can invite Tannenbaum too and port Minix. Maybe call plan9 too.
At any rate, the point is if we are going to really use virtualization, lets do it 100% and not
half-ass like we always tend to.
Oh, wait up, we should just call IBM. They have been virtualizing for years. Lets get them
to design us a good high speed cpu for that.
We (by that I mean geeks in the networking world) have been doing this for years...
Why can't we think of ways to profit from this as these companies do??
Damn, should have gone back and gotten that MBA...
Hey man, STFU... I have a BS in EE (from a real college) and a MS in Physics (again, from a real college) and
I have been jobless for some time now. 15 years unix experience, analog design experience, worked in phyics
labs, particle accelerators, etc, etc, and I can not get a job anywhere.
Take your "waaahhh, mommy, mommy I am doing too much" article and stuff it. At least you are pulling a check.
"...long term you are almost assured to find a healthy career waiting for you."
Don't belive that for a second. I have a BS in EECE/CompSci, MS in Physics, and took
all of the courses to get a Ph.D. in Computer Eng. I have 15 years unix experience,
10 years hands on sysadmin experience, can design and write software, and in fact
hardware at the device level.
When I was in the Ph.D. program, people from other countries were getting the internships,
job offers, etc. The four (out of almost 200) grad students who were "local" to this
country did not get jack, myself included. I was told by a friend of mine who went to
work at Intel that they were not hiring US citizens, as it costs too damn much.
So there, I said it. I was born here, went to college here, gained expeience here...
And 1.5 years and 1000s of resumes (with college degrees and experience and all) later,
I am still without employment in the US.
Like the other comment mentioned, knowing a second language may not be a bad thing right now.
It would have been nice to release the source code for the client, eh? Now all of my
idle cpu clocks on all of my dual cpu sun machines will still go to waste heating the
house instead of helping mankind. (the client is AMD or Wintel x86 only).
I suppose the apple guys are in the same camp until 2006 (apple-tel?) also...
When will they ever learn.
As a Ph.D. student in Computer Engineering, I can attest to the fact that schools today lack a requisite in math and sci. As an undergrad I took more math as I knew I was going to go for an M.S. in Physics. In physics, I took even more math to stay on top of the courses. Now in my Ph.D., it scares me to see EEs and CEs at the M.S. and Ph.D. level that do not know matrix algebra, differential equations or numerical analysis.
Listen up, if you are going to go into any engineering major or science major, take more math. It can only help you. (even if you do not use it, you will learn to look at problems in a different light).
Many people make them, and they are real oscopes on
a PCI card... but the ones I have used were GaGe...
http://www.gage-applied.com/
Should not be too pricey, and I think they have
educational discounts. They are the best option
I have seen to get a real oscope in a computer, and
the sampling rate and digitization will beat a sound card hands down.
Given the many ways in which I can make a machine
a passive listening device on the LAN to gather information (even in a switched environment), do you
see future security focusing on authentication mechanisims on the LAN, even for the simplest of things (e.g. to get connected to a switch, to allow a MAC address, etc)? Going to a larger scale, do you see something like this taking place on the WAN? Lets say (putting on my lets get nasty hat) Microsoft Palladium (.net, NM$FPSG, whatever they call it now) authentication + your MAC addres s just to get connected to the net?
Anyone there doing live video or something??
:(
Anyone have a link to some play-by-play action??
My boss would not let me attend
Even then, I think it is more of a "what you are after" situation. For instance, the chipset itself can dramatically change the performance. As well as ram, etc, etc... so the idea is are you benching the CPUs against each other or the CPU/chipset/RAM system against each other? Even then the question is "how do I verify that the results are not skewed based on the testing methodoligy?"
We need better testing. You can not (really)
expect the same test to give you a good judgement, and then on the other hand, having different test for each CPU would obviously not give you a good judgement... Hmm, perhaps some speed testing on regular apps. I know they do that on quake and the like, but then that was written for a specific architecture also. Just a thought.
I think that now they are tied into this "upgrading" so much that they are going to find it difficult to move away from it...
M$ being one of the primary instigators of this...
i.e. the older (M$app) x.x does not work with new (M$app) y.y.
Perhaps this is a chance for open source to shine.. upgrades are... FREE.
Hmph, seems as though the dot in .com can not hang with a little slashdot on them. I can ping it, but no response from port 80 from here...
Perhaps they should use one of those bad boys for the webserver?
Ahead of its time then... a little lamish on the effects by todays standards, but it was great. As I have no cable I have no idea what is on now... Does anyone really watch Cable?? I thought all these /. people were DVDers...
You forget, oh grasshopper, that you speak of electron drift. The electrons will drift in a wire much more slowly than the electric and magnetic field that we are (incorrectly as EEs do) calling current. Let us not wander into the discussion of electron drift verses actual arrival of elctric voltage potential as indeed that is the way to craploads of math that I will have to spew at you, and therefore insanity. Cheers.
As someone who has "gone down the road to hi-fi" so to speak, I see a lot of reviews/interviews that look at the megabuck systems. You can actually get close to that for a fraction of the cost, say about 1500-2000. That seems reasonable to me, considering that the gear will last long enough so that if you purchased "consumer" gear you would need to replace it enough to make up the difference. As a note, stated previously about price depreciation in high end audio, the other good thing is that the service what they sell to the death. My (multi kilobuck) amp is 20years old last month and I can call Audio Research and get every part ever made for it, and still get service. Try that with a (insert your common mid-fi stereo here) unit. Ah, enough with the good things... it is still hard to justify buying an amp/cdplayer/preamp/speakers that costs more than a new car. :)
I will agree with the argument of C(++) being used as it gets one closer to the hardware, however, as someone who took the CS courses some time ago, I think that a CS course should teach fundamentals and be language independant. Of course at one point you have to actually use a language, but that should be a means to an end to be determined by one who knows the fundamentals. I may be getting off an a tangent here as it did mention it was an advanced course, but when I went through (hell) it was elementary structure etc. Getting back to the subject at hand, I think that C(++) has been time tested... should we just switch at a whim? It was not too long ago that we were all quiche eating ba#$%!#ds in those courses.
If the bandwidth of the bus is 12Mb/s, theoretically a good 1Mb/s can be achieved (overhead/etc) for actual data. This could lead to a nice stream of 128Kb/s or greater in audio format. Now all one needs is two good mics, one by each ear and a microdrive and interface and you have da bomb portable recording station. What goes down on track is exactly what you hear, no big bulky rigs etc. Just a thought.