The GE seeds themselves aren't the problem. Monoculture is, and Monsanto's business model encourages it: Sell Farmer-A roundup-ready seeds that perform 20% better than generic seeds when used with copious amounts of roundup; now Farmer-B is being competed out of business, so HE has to buy the special seeds; repeat until everyone everywhere is hooked and anyone who tries to quit goes out of business.
End result: everyone is dependent on Monsanto; roundup contaminates everything; we get roundup-ready weeds; farmers operating with 20% better production but now paying more than 20% of their take to Monsanto; and the natural genetic diversity of the crop is lost because we optimized for one trait that will only benefit us for a few years. No one wins except Monsanto.
By analogy, look at how Microsoft Office is designed compared to LibreOffice. With MS office, someone upgrades, and so now YOU have to upgrade to be compatible. With LibreOffice, it imports everything as each new file format comes out, and they support old formats forever. The reason: Microsoft's incentive is to keep you dependent on them; LibreOffice's incentive is to make software that works great and solves your needs.
I'm picking on Monsanto and their Roundup-Ready line, but as you point out, they're one of many. They're just the big one in the US.
... So please stop lending credence to it. The real concern is creating a crop monoculture engineered to meet Monsanto's short term needs (eg to sell roundup-ready seeds every year, then selling the roundup, etc), and not the long-term needs of society or even just farmers.
Unfortunately the enclosure is hard. As hobbyists we have to frequently repurpose mass produced equipment. There are some things like circuit boards which can be made in small volumes economically, but displays and injection molded plastic enclosures have very high tooling costs, so you'd need to repurpose. In this case there's probably nothing premade that will meet your needs: small devices with touchscreens are almost universally designed to be hand-held, which means as small and light as possible. That results in their being shrunk down to the minimum possible dimensions with no room inside to cram in your custom stuff.
So you're going to have to make your own. Here are a few options, depending on your needs for aesthetics and costs:
Laser-cut acrylic (or fiberboard, or any laserable material). I have made a few enclosures this way. It works great if you're OK with everything being very square and right-angular. Just make a box with all the seams dovetailed together (interlocking zig-zags), then add in cutouts for the display, knobs, buttons, cables, etc. The laser cuts it perfectly so while it looks a little hackish, it's neat and clean hackish: everything centered properly and symmetrical, nothing misaligned. It's very cheap to do.
Wood. I haven't actually done it myself, but you could contact a cabinet maker or wooden toy maker or someone else who specializes in small, precision woodworking and see what they can do for you. A simple box with neatly dovetailed corners, routed round, with all the cutouts you need, and all stained and varnished could probably be done. I think it would look nice. It might run you $100-200 each. I don't know if that's in your budget.
3D printing. This will give you any custom shape you want. The finish isn't perfect - the resolution tends to be low so it's a little bit step-sided especially around curves - but it might be acceptable. The price is around $5-20 per cubic inch of actual printed material (IE, empty space inside is free). Search for "rapid prototyping".
Machined aluminum. This is relatively expensive, though some overseas guys can do it cheaper. You can get some pretty fancy stuff done with modern CNC techniques.
Or one last option: modify an existing enclosure. You might be able to take a device with a small display (a small tablet or something) and give it a backpack with your custom stuff. That can be done as a regular project box simply glued to the back. Dirt cheap, but I don't know if that meets your aesthetic requirements.
The market spiked and it's slowly returning to normal. It hasn't bottomed. I think that the time required is a combination of rebuilding manufacturing capacity, backlogged demand slowly being filled, and simple price inertia.
I'm not interested in joyriding into LEO. I want a permanent self-sufficient colony living somewhere off this rock. I don't care if it's me personally. It's a goal for humanity.
I'm not a supporter of the shuttle or ISS. As you say it's mostly pork. But despite NASA's failings, not all of the space industry is a waste.
juvenile delight at living out their sci-fi fantasies
What's wrong with that? What do YOU live for? We have a lot of other things needing, but fulfilling my childhood fantasies is the long-term end goal, even if it doesn't happen in my lifetime.
Patents were never intended to be an incentive for innovation. They're incentive to document and disclose the invention so that after the patent expires everyone gets to benefit from it instead of it remaining a trade secret forever.
Unfortunately they've never done a good job of that either. Most things that are patented are either sufficiently obvious once you see them that no documentation was really necessary (eg, the cotton gin), or for non-obvious things (like a process to manufacture a chemical economically) the patents tend to be sufficiently obfuscated to make them essentially impossible to follow.
Make full "level 0" dumps at home to the big disk. Make delta "level 1" or incrementing levels dumps to the flash drive. Each level will back up everything that changed since the previous level.
Now, you want the backups at home to be a file copy - there's no reason you can't do that and then do level 1 dump backups on the road - ie, never actually make a level 0. Just do your rsync and then update/etc/dumpdates to reflect your rsync-level-0.
This is exactly what dump was designed to do, and it's going to be a lot easier than hacking rsync to fit.
You have to consider it as a complete circuit. Current (not power) would reach infinity If you had a zero resistance load and an infinite power supply, but those don't happen. Here are some examples to consider:
If you have a 10 volt power supply, 0 resistance superconducting wiring, and a 10 ohm load, you would get 1 amp of current x 10 volts = 10 watts dissipated at the load. Since the wiring has no resistance, its dissipated energy is zero.
If you have a 10 volt power supply, 1-ohm wiring on each side of the load and a 10 ohm load, you would have 12 ohms total which gives you 0.8333 amps x 10 volts = 8.333 watts dissipated total. Each wire will dissipate 0.8333 amps * 0.833 volts (the voltage drop of 0.8333 A through 1 ohm) = 0.694 watts, and the load will dissipate 0.8333 amps * 8.333 volts = 6.944 watts. 6.944 load + 0.694 wire + 0.694 wire = 0.8332 total watts (rounding error from 0.8333), as expected.
Having read the source, it IS a native driver. It does not use binary blobs from the Windows driver, unless you include parroting an init sequence which is apparently optional.
Ruby is porn for programmers, but it's unsuitable when performance matters. Python has a niche carved out handling mail, and is good for many other things. Lua is a solid embedded language for games. Java is (used to be?) the language of business software. Maybe it's C# these days? R is fantastic for statistics mostly due to the available libraries. Fortran is the language for physics, again due to the libraries. PHP is kind of a watered-down, nothing-exceptional language, but it's nonetheless quite popular for web dev. JavaScript is ubiquitous for client-side web, but it's also sometimes a good choice when you want a high-performance, security-conscious general purpose scripting language. Kernels are written in C with few exceptions, and of course it's second only to assembly both in performance and annoyance, for related reasons. Perl is a dead-end in my opinion, but it's not over yet; it will still be in common use for at least another decade. Lisp gets an honorable mention for many niches.
So choose what field you want to work in, then start boning up on the language they use there.
Also: cramming the syntax in a weekend doesn't make you a programmer of that language. You can write BASIC in any language, as the saying goes. The reason all these languages exist at all is because each has some feature that enables you to construct things in a radically different way from C. Some examples:
Touchscreen is kinda nice for tablets when you're moving around, but on the kitchen counter a laptop works great. I've had one there for a while. I would definitely go for something small and light (easy to get out of the way) like a laptop or tablet instead of an all-in-one.
Many disagree with that ethic. In fact, in the landmark case for tax avoidance, here's what they had to say:
"[A]nyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.
Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible.Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: Taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions.
To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant."
Slashdot Mirror
The GE seeds themselves aren't the problem. Monoculture is, and Monsanto's business model encourages it: Sell Farmer-A roundup-ready seeds that perform 20% better than generic seeds when used with copious amounts of roundup; now Farmer-B is being competed out of business, so HE has to buy the special seeds; repeat until everyone everywhere is hooked and anyone who tries to quit goes out of business.
End result: everyone is dependent on Monsanto; roundup contaminates everything; we get roundup-ready weeds; farmers operating with 20% better production but now paying more than 20% of their take to Monsanto; and the natural genetic diversity of the crop is lost because we optimized for one trait that will only benefit us for a few years. No one wins except Monsanto.
By analogy, look at how Microsoft Office is designed compared to LibreOffice. With MS office, someone upgrades, and so now YOU have to upgrade to be compatible. With LibreOffice, it imports everything as each new file format comes out, and they support old formats forever. The reason: Microsoft's incentive is to keep you dependent on them; LibreOffice's incentive is to make software that works great and solves your needs.
I'm picking on Monsanto and their Roundup-Ready line, but as you point out, they're one of many. They're just the big one in the US.
... So please stop lending credence to it. The real concern is creating a crop monoculture engineered to meet Monsanto's short term needs (eg to sell roundup-ready seeds every year, then selling the roundup, etc), and not the long-term needs of society or even just farmers.
Unfortunately the enclosure is hard. As hobbyists we have to frequently repurpose mass produced equipment. There are some things like circuit boards which can be made in small volumes economically, but displays and injection molded plastic enclosures have very high tooling costs, so you'd need to repurpose. In this case there's probably nothing premade that will meet your needs: small devices with touchscreens are almost universally designed to be hand-held, which means as small and light as possible. That results in their being shrunk down to the minimum possible dimensions with no room inside to cram in your custom stuff.
So you're going to have to make your own. Here are a few options, depending on your needs for aesthetics and costs:
Laser-cut acrylic (or fiberboard, or any laserable material). I have made a few enclosures this way. It works great if you're OK with everything being very square and right-angular. Just make a box with all the seams dovetailed together (interlocking zig-zags), then add in cutouts for the display, knobs, buttons, cables, etc. The laser cuts it perfectly so while it looks a little hackish, it's neat and clean hackish: everything centered properly and symmetrical, nothing misaligned. It's very cheap to do.
Wood. I haven't actually done it myself, but you could contact a cabinet maker or wooden toy maker or someone else who specializes in small, precision woodworking and see what they can do for you. A simple box with neatly dovetailed corners, routed round, with all the cutouts you need, and all stained and varnished could probably be done. I think it would look nice. It might run you $100-200 each. I don't know if that's in your budget.
3D printing. This will give you any custom shape you want. The finish isn't perfect - the resolution tends to be low so it's a little bit step-sided especially around curves - but it might be acceptable. The price is around $5-20 per cubic inch of actual printed material (IE, empty space inside is free). Search for "rapid prototyping".
Machined aluminum. This is relatively expensive, though some overseas guys can do it cheaper. You can get some pretty fancy stuff done with modern CNC techniques.
Or one last option: modify an existing enclosure. You might be able to take a device with a small display (a small tablet or something) and give it a backpack with your custom stuff. That can be done as a regular project box simply glued to the back. Dirt cheap, but I don't know if that meets your aesthetic requirements.
And by "my charts" I mean camelegg: http://camelegg.com/product/N82E16822152245
The market spiked and it's slowly returning to normal. It hasn't bottomed. I think that the time required is a combination of rebuilding manufacturing capacity, backlogged demand slowly being filled, and simple price inertia.
I'm not interested in joyriding into LEO. I want a permanent self-sufficient colony living somewhere off this rock. I don't care if it's me personally. It's a goal for humanity.
I'm not a supporter of the shuttle or ISS. As you say it's mostly pork. But despite NASA's failings, not all of the space industry is a waste.
It wasn't bidding: Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC are all the same company. It's most likely your second theory.
juvenile delight at living out their sci-fi fantasies
What's wrong with that? What do YOU live for? We have a lot of other things needing, but fulfilling my childhood fantasies is the long-term end goal, even if it doesn't happen in my lifetime.
Patents were never intended to be an incentive for innovation. They're incentive to document and disclose the invention so that after the patent expires everyone gets to benefit from it instead of it remaining a trade secret forever.
Unfortunately they've never done a good job of that either. Most things that are patented are either sufficiently obvious once you see them that no documentation was really necessary (eg, the cotton gin), or for non-obvious things (like a process to manufacture a chemical economically) the patents tend to be sufficiently obfuscated to make them essentially impossible to follow.
Sparkfun has lots of hobbyist-friendly parts, including LCDs: http://www.sparkfun.com/categories/76?sort_by=price_desc
The only thing they're missing from your requirements is an enclosure, but certainly you can hack something together.
Make full "level 0" dumps at home to the big disk. Make delta "level 1" or incrementing levels dumps to the flash drive. Each level will back up everything that changed since the previous level.
Now, you want the backups at home to be a file copy - there's no reason you can't do that and then do level 1 dump backups on the road - ie, never actually make a level 0. Just do your rsync and then update /etc/dumpdates to reflect your rsync-level-0.
This is exactly what dump was designed to do, and it's going to be a lot easier than hacking rsync to fit.
Good point! I wasn't aware of that one.
Why flee? We'd get to copy it freely in the US, and they'd get long copyright protection elsewhere, regardless of if they stay or go.
... and therefore free to use for any purpose without having to distribute the source.
You have to consider it as a complete circuit. Current (not power) would reach infinity If you had a zero resistance load and an infinite power supply, but those don't happen. Here are some examples to consider:
If you have a 10 volt power supply, 0 resistance superconducting wiring, and a 10 ohm load, you would get 1 amp of current x 10 volts = 10 watts dissipated at the load. Since the wiring has no resistance, its dissipated energy is zero.
If you have a 10 volt power supply, 1-ohm wiring on each side of the load and a 10 ohm load, you would have 12 ohms total which gives you 0.8333 amps x 10 volts = 8.333 watts dissipated total. Each wire will dissipate 0.8333 amps * 0.833 volts (the voltage drop of 0.8333 A through 1 ohm) = 0.694 watts, and the load will dissipate 0.8333 amps * 8.333 volts = 6.944 watts. 6.944 load + 0.694 wire + 0.694 wire = 0.8332 total watts (rounding error from 0.8333), as expected.
That part made no sense at all. :)
Having read the source, it IS a native driver. It does not use binary blobs from the Windows driver, unless you include parroting an init sequence which is apparently optional.
Ruby is porn for programmers, but it's unsuitable when performance matters.
Python has a niche carved out handling mail, and is good for many other things.
Lua is a solid embedded language for games.
Java is (used to be?) the language of business software. Maybe it's C# these days?
R is fantastic for statistics mostly due to the available libraries.
Fortran is the language for physics, again due to the libraries.
PHP is kind of a watered-down, nothing-exceptional language, but it's nonetheless quite popular for web dev.
JavaScript is ubiquitous for client-side web, but it's also sometimes a good choice when you want a high-performance, security-conscious general purpose scripting language.
Kernels are written in C with few exceptions, and of course it's second only to assembly both in performance and annoyance, for related reasons.
Perl is a dead-end in my opinion, but it's not over yet; it will still be in common use for at least another decade.
Lisp gets an honorable mention for many niches.
So choose what field you want to work in, then start boning up on the language they use there.
Also: cramming the syntax in a weekend doesn't make you a programmer of that language. You can write BASIC in any language, as the saying goes. The reason all these languages exist at all is because each has some feature that enables you to construct things in a radically different way from C. Some examples:
Ruby is pervasively OO (everything is an object, everything you do is a method) and highly functional (lambdas, etc).
Take a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_(programming_language) - the whole mindset is very different from what you're used to.
Then this: http://en.literateprograms.org/Quicksort_(Haskell)
Etc.
The panels are rated for 93kW
I'm guessing they produce 500-600 kW/h per day
The motors are 2 x 60kW max, 20kW total @cruise
Touchscreen is kinda nice for tablets when you're moving around, but on the kitchen counter a laptop works great. I've had one there for a while. I would definitely go for something small and light (easy to get out of the way) like a laptop or tablet instead of an all-in-one.
... those who can't, litigate.
10Mbit, 1200-1400 meter range, GFDL-licensed open designs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RONJA
Instead of lasers they use LEDs with relatively inexpensive lenses.
Many disagree with that ethic. In fact, in the landmark case for tax avoidance, here's what they had to say:
"[A]nyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.
Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible.Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: Taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions.
To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant."
... and let them create all the domains they want there. Meanwhile we can go about setting up a new TLD managed by someone who can do so responsibly.
Starcraft won't run on ARM, Windows or not. As for the rest, why are you running Android when you clearly need Ubuntu?
... Now without paper or even needing to ask.