What happened to the good old days? They never existed. Sure, a lot more people used to build hardware than do now, but I don't see what relevance that has to the subject, unless you plan on ditching your computer and going back to 4 track.
There are a lot of impediments to open source projects. One, which you've identified is lack of interest from the programmers in fixing certain bugs. But if that were completely true on the whole, how does an OS like linux even come to exist?
I think the bigger problem is a lack of organization/agreement on certain aspects of the OS. There are certain things which really just need a total overhaul, and that's really difficult to do in an open source scenario where not everyone agrees what needs to be done.
Well, Jack will most certainly do more than "Single pipe in/single pipe out"
I used to have my box set up running brutefir (a filter program) in jack. I would run the outputs from my buses in ardour to both channels 7-8 on my soundcard for monitoring on my headphones, as well as to the inputs of brutefir for separation into Sub/Woofer/Tweeter channels, which ran out of brutefir to channels 1-6 on my card.
That aspect of it is great. The problems are that jackd (and the apps that depend on it) crash far too easily.
The odd time that I did something really stupid and caused an underrun jack would usually crash. I'm not sure if it's jack itself that started the crash, or brutefir dropping out causing it to crash, but anyway you look at it, it meant killing all of the audio apps (which frequently hung when they lost their connection to jackd), restarting everything, and then reconnecting all of my flows.
Obviously I shouldn't be getting underruns to begin with, but if I do, I should get a report, and a botched recording, rather than a large conglomeration of crashed and hung apps.
One of the biggest things required is a consistent standard for linux audio. Maybe a jack-like framework implemented in the kernel.
Basically, we just need something that everyone can actually use, rather than varied support for the many sound daemons allowing only certain sub-sets of programs to work together without a lot of hassle.
Also, it would be nice if you didn't have to dedicate a machine specifically to recording. Unfortunately, Jack is required for doing any real audio work, and yet it gets in the way of running anything else.
I used to run brutefir as a digital crossover, which I ran to my subs, woofers, and tweeters individually.
It's really awesome that you can do stuff like that, but unfortunately, application support was pretty weak. I had to run pulse's jack-sink module to make certain apps work, Native jack plugins for others, alsa's jack plugins for some.
So, it's okay to circumvent DRM as long as the non infringing uses are "easy"?
I agree with you that most of the guys doing this are pretty much slime, but there needs to be a well defined line of what's legal and what's not. It's not a good idea to just make everything illegal, and then let off those who don't have ill intent, or pretty soon all of your freedoms are at the whim of the police/legal system.
People do write unsigned apps for all of those systems. It doesn't make it okay to make it illegal just because the average Joe isn't capable.
He wasn't "tinkering with a console", he was running a console modding business.
I totally agree that 10 years is excessive, and as an avid hardware hacker I think the anti-circumvention laws are totally crap to begin with, but painting the guy as a tinkerer casts a bad light on the rest of us tinkerers who aren't making a living off of what he knows is mostly being used for pirating games.
He's morally in the wrong, IMO, but it still shouldn't be any more illegal than manufacturing DVD-R drives/discs which also mostly used for piracy, with a small percentage used for legit purposes.
If piracy is already illegal, why not just go after the pirates directly, and avoid the gray area of anti-circumvention.
RF moves fast enough, but it's the modulation of the digital signal, and demodulation/processing which slows things down. Nothing to do with drivers, and the bad hardware is the mouse.
I've used wireless logitechs and didn't like them. there is a lag. It's very short, but it's there. some people don't notice it, but some do and absolutely hate it.
maybe not a big issue for programming, where you won't be using it a lot, but still I think wired isn't much of a disadvantage, and avoids all the other issues.
I bought an MX-1000 and couldn't stand it. It had a very short, but noticeable lag and it was tail heavy and had too long a detection depth, so if I did want to pick it up and reposition it, It would move up a bit due to the tilt on lifting it, unless I had it in a death grip.
It just doesn't compare to a really good lightweight corded optical. Razer Diamondback is my favourite. (I'd stay away from the Lachesis though, I have one of those too, and it sucks)
Any geeky wireless mouse should meet the criteria you're looking for. Logitech MX1000 off the top of my head. I bought one once. Used it for a whole 40 minutes before I returned it to the store.
It's exactly the opposite of everything you think you need, but probably difficult to find anything better.
Light, well balanced, has a nice thin cord, so you don't notice it's there, but still don't have to deal with wireless lag/dead batteries.
Stay away from the lachesis though. I got one of those, and it's junk compared to my old Diamondback. Tracking issues, and problems with the wheel/centre button. Twice the $, and I'd trade it for another diamondback any day.
Also, don't overlook the importance of a good keyboard. It'll make way more difference than your mouse.
My favourite cheap(ish) board is the fujitsu 4725 (or 4726, etc.). If you're willing to spend the $, something with cherry microswitches is best. one of the Das Keyboards, or if you like to code in the dark, Deck legend. I have one of those and it's great. Unfortunately they only have the red with linear keys.. It's easiest on the eyes in the dark, unlike the overrated retina scorching fugly blue that's so popular lately. I'd like to get another one with the tactile keys, but I've either gotta wait until they have them in red or green, or I'm going to have to transplant the diodes myself (btw, they have the schematic for download, and don't void your warranty if your mods are competent)
The vast majority of 8 bit NICs I've seen are arcnet. Back in the days when you still had ISA slots on your main PC you could have both cards in it and set it up as a bridge, but you're not likely to find a PCI arcnet card, and 8 bit ISA ethernet cards aren't that common.
I think the only reason to resurrect that box is for personal nostalgia. It's really pretty useless these days. Shoehorning crippled versions of new apps onto old hardware is pointless. Old apps, equally pointless if there's a modern equivalent. Games I can understand, but on 512k? Is there really anything you would want to play now? If so, there's emulators for that.
Keeping old hardware running as long as it's useful is great, but there's a certain point where it just doesn't make sense anymore.
You may find OOP more natural, but that doesn't mean it is more natural.
It certainly isn't for the machine, and I don't think it is for most people either.
When I learned programming back in highschool, they tried to each us both C++ and pascal. I found pascal much easier, and so did most of the class. I also got into embedding bits of assembly in my pascal code, and I think that was one of the most useful things I learned.
I think it's far better to learn from the machine level up, and the machine likes procedural.
That said, BASIC is not a really good language. learn a bit of assembly (enough to understand how it works, not write big projects in it), and then learn C. I prefer pascal, myself, but it's pretty much dead now. C is more useful.
Oh yeah, I forgot this link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization
Even if you don't believe their references and hypotheses, there's still some really good factual background info.
What do I have to gain by "making crap up"? I'm not selling anything. I'm not receiving any money for research.
I'm just not willing to be two faced about the whole thing. Arguing against the "OMFG the sky is falling" types, citing insufficient evidence, and then taking the first "Everything's going to be fine, don't worry about it." as fact, without equal scrutiny.
Note that I did not say that algae wouldn't absorb CO2. I just asked the questions "what else is needed?"
Even simple Phytoplankton does need other materials than light and CO2. It doesn't need much, but there are other factors involved which limit growth. My point is: that higher CO2 levels promote algae growth, doesn't mean that a lack of algae shows a corresponding lack of CO2.
It's simply not a suitable gauge, especially when there are ways to measure the dissolved gasses without confounding factors, and those measurements do show increases in CO2 content.
And, once again referring to the same experiment, I have to ask: If phytoplankton require only CO2 and sunlight, why did adding iron to the water cause a drastic increase in growth? If you say it's the wrong kind of plankton, why didn't the right kind of plankton grow before the iron was added? No seeding of the bloom was necessary AFAIK. They just dumped iron in the water, and algae grew. Obviously there was enough CO2 and sunlight for a lot of algae to grow, so this demonstrates that they weren't being limited by CO2 or sunlight.
To me, this says we need to look into it a lot more and answer some of the questions I asked a few posts back. It's also really tangential to my original post. If CO2 is not a problem, then we don't need machines to pull it out of the atmosphere and liquefy it. If CO2 is a problem, then we certainly aren't helping matters by producing an extra 20% more just to put it into another state where we still can't really deal with it.
I understand photosynthesis, but you're oversimplifying. Algae needs more than just CO2 and water to grow.
This is clearly demonstrated by the experiment I mentioned. They dumped a bunch of iron in the water, and very quickly had an algae bloom near 100 feet long.
Obviously that algae was not just being limited by CO2, which casts some doubt on using algae as the sole gauge for whether or not things are in balance.
A lot of carbon dioxide will be released when you burn that part of the wood, and you're not absorbing any additional CO2 that isn't already in the wood.
All of the CO2 will not necessarily be released as the tree rots, and I'd be somewhat surprised if the net result is any better on the charcoal route than on the normal life cycle of a tree route.
At current CO2 production rates, normal levels of algae and plankton don't keep up. Intentionally farming algae might be more successful.
There's been experiments with that off the Antarctic coast. While it's
certainly a possibility worth looking into, there's still a lot of
potential show-stoppers.
What other materials, besides CO2 does the algae and plankton require to
grow? Is there sufficent amounts, or will the algae use it all up, choking
out surrounding areas like weeds in a garden? Will materials we add, such as iron used to stimulate algae growth, have any negative impact on other life in the area?
What happens to the carbon after the algae dies? If most of it sinks, and
turns into oil in the distant future, great, but if it ends up back in the
water or atmosphere then it's all for naught, and maybe at the expense of other plants or animals whose environment is screwed with by massive amounts of algae, or other materials used as fertilizer.
Yes, we do need to do *something* but we need to figure out what we should do before we do it.
CO2 is already in massive surplus in the chemical industry, since it's already captured from many other chemical production and industrial processes.
Pulling it all out of the air, and storing it as a liquid gets us nowhere. The containers to hold it will take a lot of energy to produce (creating more atmospheric co2), and will need to be stored somewhere.
Using the ocean to store it is pretty much just a buffer. It'll help in the short term, but it'll acidify the ocean over time, causing other problems, and as global temperatures rise, more of it will come out of solution, back into the atmosphere.
I think, for the time being at least, the *something* we need to do is to be more efficient as a society.
Drive less, Repair things when they break instead of replacing. Use what items we do purchase for their entire lifespan, rather than replacing constantly. Buy local when possible.
Most importantly, be very careful of false efficiencies. Scrapping a functional appliance/vehicle/lightbulb to replace it with one that is more efficient rarely saves sufficient energy to offset the energy wasted by the inefficient item.
In most cases, more energy is saved by using the item until it is no longer usable, and then replacing with a more efficient replacement.
To correct the problems caused by society's excesses, there's going to need to be some sacrifices. Technology can help considerably, but I don't think we can buy our way out of the troubles we're getting into. It's like trying to dig your way out of a hole.
I'm not saying we need to all abandon our lifestyles and live in the forest, either. Just keeping in mind when you're wasting energy or buying things you don't need, and making responsible decisions will go a long way.
It really depends on how you look at it, and what you consider part of the system. If you considered CO2 the input of the system, and Liquid CO2 the output, then yes, it would be 400% efficient. I don't think it makes much sense to look at it that way.
Any way you want to say it, 20% overhead is a lot. for every 4kg of fuel you burn, you're going to burn another kg of fuel just to catch the CO2 emissions (or an equal amount from the atmosphere).
It would still be a good thing if it was correcting the problem, but it's not. It's 20% overhead just to pull the CO2 out of the air, and store it as a liquid. You still need to figure out what to do with the stuff.
That means we're going to burn 20% more fuel to deal with a problem that comes from burning too much fuel.
To make things worse, it doesn't even really deal with the problem, it just converts the CO2 to a liquid which has to be stored somehow, forever. There's no easy answers there. Dropping it to the bottom of the ocean won't work, at least not permanently.
The ocean is already a huge CO2 sink. why wouldn't that CO2 solidify, covering the bottom of the ocean with dry ice, if the pressure is high enough, and the temperature low enough?
Simple answer. There's not enough pressure to keep it as a solid, and at those low temperatures and high pressures, it dissolves easily into the water. So, while you don't get bubbles coming up, the problem still hasn't gone away.
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There are a lot of impediments to open source projects. One, which you've identified is lack of interest from the programmers in fixing certain bugs. But if that were completely true on the whole, how does an OS like linux even come to exist?
I think the bigger problem is a lack of organization/agreement on certain aspects of the OS. There are certain things which really just need a total overhaul, and that's really difficult to do in an open source scenario where not everyone agrees what needs to be done.
I used to have my box set up running brutefir (a filter program) in jack. I would run the outputs from my buses in ardour to both channels 7-8 on my soundcard for monitoring on my headphones, as well as to the inputs of brutefir for separation into Sub/Woofer/Tweeter channels, which ran out of brutefir to channels 1-6 on my card.
That aspect of it is great. The problems are that jackd (and the apps that depend on it) crash far too easily.
The odd time that I did something really stupid and caused an underrun jack would usually crash. I'm not sure if it's jack itself that started the crash, or brutefir dropping out causing it to crash, but anyway you look at it, it meant killing all of the audio apps (which frequently hung when they lost their connection to jackd), restarting everything, and then reconnecting all of my flows.
Obviously I shouldn't be getting underruns to begin with, but if I do, I should get a report, and a botched recording, rather than a large conglomeration of crashed and hung apps.
One of the biggest things required is a consistent standard for linux audio. Maybe a jack-like framework implemented in the kernel.
Basically, we just need something that everyone can actually use, rather than varied support for the many sound daemons allowing only certain sub-sets of programs to work together without a lot of hassle.
Jackd also crashes at the drop of a hat.
Also, it would be nice if you didn't have to dedicate a machine specifically to recording. Unfortunately, Jack is required for doing any real audio work, and yet it gets in the way of running anything else.
I used to run brutefir as a digital crossover, which I ran to my subs, woofers, and tweeters individually.
It's really awesome that you can do stuff like that, but unfortunately, application support was pretty weak. I had to run pulse's jack-sink module to make certain apps work, Native jack plugins for others, alsa's jack plugins for some.
It was so cumbersome that I eventually gave up.
He broke the law. It's a stupid law, so it should be changed, not ignored.
Illegal in the US though.
I agree with you that most of the guys doing this are pretty much slime, but there needs to be a well defined line of what's legal and what's not. It's not a good idea to just make everything illegal, and then let off those who don't have ill intent, or pretty soon all of your freedoms are at the whim of the police/legal system.
People do write unsigned apps for all of those systems. It doesn't make it okay to make it illegal just because the average Joe isn't capable.
I totally agree that 10 years is excessive, and as an avid hardware hacker I think the anti-circumvention laws are totally crap to begin with, but painting the guy as a tinkerer casts a bad light on the rest of us tinkerers who aren't making a living off of what he knows is mostly being used for pirating games.
He's morally in the wrong, IMO, but it still shouldn't be any more illegal than manufacturing DVD-R drives/discs which also mostly used for piracy, with a small percentage used for legit purposes.
If piracy is already illegal, why not just go after the pirates directly, and avoid the gray area of anti-circumvention.
You might be confusing Stargate with 2001 a little bit.
I've used wireless logitechs and didn't like them. there is a lag. It's very short, but it's there. some people don't notice it, but some do and absolutely hate it.
maybe not a big issue for programming, where you won't be using it a lot, but still I think wired isn't much of a disadvantage, and avoids all the other issues.
I'd stick with optical though. Had some problems with my lachesis (4000dpi laser) My Diamondback has been perfect for many years.
Can't get high end mice with cords? Maybe you're judging high end by the price? I've never used a cordless that I've liked.
I bought an MX-1000 and couldn't stand it. It had a very short, but noticeable lag and it was tail heavy and had too long a detection depth, so if I did want to pick it up and reposition it, It would move up a bit due to the tilt on lifting it, unless I had it in a death grip. It just doesn't compare to a really good lightweight corded optical. Razer Diamondback is my favourite. (I'd stay away from the Lachesis though, I have one of those too, and it sucks)
Favourite mouse I've ever used: Razer Diamondback.
It's exactly the opposite of everything you think you need, but probably difficult to find anything better.
Light, well balanced, has a nice thin cord, so you don't notice it's there, but still don't have to deal with wireless lag/dead batteries.
Stay away from the lachesis though. I got one of those, and it's junk compared to my old Diamondback. Tracking issues, and problems with the wheel/centre button. Twice the $, and I'd trade it for another diamondback any day.
Also, don't overlook the importance of a good keyboard. It'll make way more difference than your mouse. My favourite cheap(ish) board is the fujitsu 4725 (or 4726, etc.). If you're willing to spend the $, something with cherry microswitches is best. one of the Das Keyboards, or if you like to code in the dark, Deck legend. I have one of those and it's great. Unfortunately they only have the red with linear keys.. It's easiest on the eyes in the dark, unlike the overrated retina scorching fugly blue that's so popular lately. I'd like to get another one with the tactile keys, but I've either gotta wait until they have them in red or green, or I'm going to have to transplant the diodes myself (btw, they have the schematic for download, and don't void your warranty if your mods are competent)
I think the only reason to resurrect that box is for personal nostalgia. It's really pretty useless these days. Shoehorning crippled versions of new apps onto old hardware is pointless. Old apps, equally pointless if there's a modern equivalent. Games I can understand, but on 512k? Is there really anything you would want to play now? If so, there's emulators for that.
Keeping old hardware running as long as it's useful is great, but there's a certain point where it just doesn't make sense anymore.
It certainly isn't for the machine, and I don't think it is for most people either.
When I learned programming back in highschool, they tried to each us both C++ and pascal. I found pascal much easier, and so did most of the class. I also got into embedding bits of assembly in my pascal code, and I think that was one of the most useful things I learned.
I think it's far better to learn from the machine level up, and the machine likes procedural.
That said, BASIC is not a really good language. learn a bit of assembly (enough to understand how it works, not write big projects in it), and then learn C. I prefer pascal, myself, but it's pretty much dead now. C is more useful.
This all happened before. Embedded video was always super sketchy and browser/os dependent, and wouldn't work without the right codecs,
So, people used flash.. :(
Oh yeah, I forgot this link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization Even if you don't believe their references and hypotheses, there's still some really good factual background info.
I'm just not willing to be two faced about the whole thing. Arguing against the "OMFG the sky is falling" types, citing insufficient evidence, and then taking the first "Everything's going to be fine, don't worry about it." as fact, without equal scrutiny.
Note that I did not say that algae wouldn't absorb CO2. I just asked the questions "what else is needed?"
Even simple Phytoplankton does need other materials than light and CO2. It doesn't need much, but there are other factors involved which limit growth. My point is: that higher CO2 levels promote algae growth, doesn't mean that a lack of algae shows a corresponding lack of CO2.
It's simply not a suitable gauge, especially when there are ways to measure the dissolved gasses without confounding factors, and those measurements do show increases in CO2 content.
And, once again referring to the same experiment, I have to ask: If phytoplankton require only CO2 and sunlight, why did adding iron to the water cause a drastic increase in growth? If you say it's the wrong kind of plankton, why didn't the right kind of plankton grow before the iron was added? No seeding of the bloom was necessary AFAIK. They just dumped iron in the water, and algae grew. Obviously there was enough CO2 and sunlight for a lot of algae to grow, so this demonstrates that they weren't being limited by CO2 or sunlight.
To me, this says we need to look into it a lot more and answer some of the questions I asked a few posts back. It's also really tangential to my original post. If CO2 is not a problem, then we don't need machines to pull it out of the atmosphere and liquefy it. If CO2 is a problem, then we certainly aren't helping matters by producing an extra 20% more just to put it into another state where we still can't really deal with it.
This is clearly demonstrated by the experiment I mentioned. They dumped a bunch of iron in the water, and very quickly had an algae bloom near 100 feet long.
Obviously that algae was not just being limited by CO2, which casts some doubt on using algae as the sole gauge for whether or not things are in balance.
A lot of carbon dioxide will be released when you burn that part of the wood, and you're not absorbing any additional CO2 that isn't already in the wood. All of the CO2 will not necessarily be released as the tree rots, and I'd be somewhat surprised if the net result is any better on the charcoal route than on the normal life cycle of a tree route.
There's been experiments with that off the Antarctic coast. While it's certainly a possibility worth looking into, there's still a lot of potential show-stoppers.
What other materials, besides CO2 does the algae and plankton require to grow? Is there sufficent amounts, or will the algae use it all up, choking out surrounding areas like weeds in a garden? Will materials we add, such as iron used to stimulate algae growth, have any negative impact on other life in the area? What happens to the carbon after the algae dies? If most of it sinks, and turns into oil in the distant future, great, but if it ends up back in the water or atmosphere then it's all for naught, and maybe at the expense of other plants or animals whose environment is screwed with by massive amounts of algae, or other materials used as fertilizer.
CO2 is already in massive surplus in the chemical industry, since it's already captured from many other chemical production and industrial processes.
Pulling it all out of the air, and storing it as a liquid gets us nowhere. The containers to hold it will take a lot of energy to produce (creating more atmospheric co2), and will need to be stored somewhere.
Using the ocean to store it is pretty much just a buffer. It'll help in the short term, but it'll acidify the ocean over time, causing other problems, and as global temperatures rise, more of it will come out of solution, back into the atmosphere.
I think, for the time being at least, the *something* we need to do is to be more efficient as a society.
Drive less, Repair things when they break instead of replacing. Use what items we do purchase for their entire lifespan, rather than replacing constantly. Buy local when possible.
Most importantly, be very careful of false efficiencies. Scrapping a functional appliance/vehicle/lightbulb to replace it with one that is more efficient rarely saves sufficient energy to offset the energy wasted by the inefficient item. In most cases, more energy is saved by using the item until it is no longer usable, and then replacing with a more efficient replacement.
To correct the problems caused by society's excesses, there's going to need to be some sacrifices. Technology can help considerably, but I don't think we can buy our way out of the troubles we're getting into. It's like trying to dig your way out of a hole.
I'm not saying we need to all abandon our lifestyles and live in the forest, either. Just keeping in mind when you're wasting energy or buying things you don't need, and making responsible decisions will go a long way.
You should be in marketing.
It really depends on how you look at it, and what you consider part of the system. If you considered CO2 the input of the system, and Liquid CO2 the output, then yes, it would be 400% efficient. I don't think it makes much sense to look at it that way.
Any way you want to say it, 20% overhead is a lot. for every 4kg of fuel you burn, you're going to burn another kg of fuel just to catch the CO2 emissions (or an equal amount from the atmosphere).
It would still be a good thing if it was correcting the problem, but it's not. It's 20% overhead just to pull the CO2 out of the air, and store it as a liquid. You still need to figure out what to do with the stuff.
That step puts out CO2 as well...
More than you'll absorb.
That means we're going to burn 20% more fuel to deal with a problem that comes from burning too much fuel.
To make things worse, it doesn't even really deal with the problem, it just converts the CO2 to a liquid which has to be stored somehow, forever. There's no easy answers there. Dropping it to the bottom of the ocean won't work, at least not permanently.
The ocean is already a huge CO2 sink. why wouldn't that CO2 solidify, covering the bottom of the ocean with dry ice, if the pressure is high enough, and the temperature low enough?
Simple answer. There's not enough pressure to keep it as a solid, and at those low temperatures and high pressures, it dissolves easily into the water. So, while you don't get bubbles coming up, the problem still hasn't gone away.