"Electron spin" is a misnomer. The electron is not really spinning. This is just a name for the particular quantum mechanical property that causes the electron to deflect one way or another when travelling through a magnetic field.
Well, that particular quantum-mechanical property is called 'spin' by pretty much all physicists, so I wouldn't call it a misnomer. It was originally thought to be actual rotation, since its behaviour mimics that of a charged rotating sphere in some ways. Now we know it isn't really spinning, but the name 'spin' has stuck since we don't have any better name for it.
Agreed. Why is it that computer geeks are always defending their lack of spelling/grammar in natural languages, while they (allegedly) work with programming languages that don't tolerate one single typo?
most games are windows apps first, and then, if they're lucky, ported to another OS.
The mere possibility of porting to other platforms should make OpenGL more sensible choice from the very beginning. Of course porting is going to be a big and rare effort if you always have to rewrite the graphics stuff. I'm not just talking about Mac and Linux, but consoles and mobile devices as well.
Agreed! I'm not much of a gamer, but sometimes I fire up Tuxracer which runs very smoothly on my Intel 855/852 laptop. Beryl also runs fine.
It seems that many people have some kind of religion against integrated graphics, and they insist on buying external monster graphics cards no matter what kind of use. These are the same folks that insist on dedicated graphics memory without looking at any real world performance, even though things like AGP were specifically designed for fast access of motherboard RAM.
Then again, I also value open source and I like getting the necessary hardware drivers with the vanilla Linux kernel.
You can get many distros of Linux for zero money, but IMHO calling it 'freeware' misses the point of Free Software. One of these is that it's developed by a community of volunteers, whereas companies hire people to write freeware all the time. Also, 'freeware' has all the negative connotations of being 'cheap'.
I found the 1371 apparently has two DACs. Or rather, two pairs of DACs (since they're stereo). Seems that anything I try to send to the second one still comes out of the first, though..... which is probably a good job actually, since there doesn't seem to be anywhere else for it to go (no second output socket)! Is this just a design quirk, or have I really got two sound cards in one there? And if so, where do I extract the other output?
Many sound cards have multiple DACs going to the same output. AFAIK, the Amiga had four DACs which were used by the first 4-channel trackers, as software mixing was computationally expensive at the time. This point is pretty much moot now, but you could argue that hardware mixing still produces better quality.
I also have a 1371 and IIRC the choice of two stereo DACs was made to dedicate one for the software synth. With proper drivers the card could appear as a vintage Soundblaster to DOS games, with PCM sound going directly to a hardware DAC.
Of course, it would be great to be able to tap into the separate outputs, but it would complicate matters in such low-end cards. For real audio work I prefer an external card anyway.
IIRC, the 'beige box' was conceived to give more humane look to early sharp-edged, industrial-style computers. Then sometime around the 1990s we realized the beige box was ugly and the more technological design was cool. So I for one don't welcome our new wooden beige box overlords.
There's no point in burning to DVD for "archival" since DVD is too unreliable. Anecdotally, DVDs seem to last only a few months to a year or two. Perhaps good quality tape archival would be good if you need the security? But really, hard disks are so cheap nowadays, it's feasible to have many PeeCees with new, high-qulaity disks in your house and to have multiple copies of the data.
I've been archiving music on DVDs for a couple of years, and just this week I decided to get an external hard drive instead. I figured the price per GB is almost equal; in Finland there's the 'tax' on blank DVDs, but not (yet) on hard drives.
Of course, a hard drive is more versatile and portable. My only worry so far has been that a broken DVD is much less of a loss than a broken HD.
Ape compresses a few % better than Flac at the expense of much more CPU usage. When compressing lots of CDs at once, the difference is significant. Flac was designed to be light on resources to facilitate portable devices, but it helps with modern computers as well.
Also, Ape is not free software, despite the availability of source for certain versions. It's only officially released for Windows.
So, in line with most others, I'd recommend Flac, but you might also look into WavPack as it also seems to be free software.
Market economy relies on customer choice, on which production decisions are based. In Soviet Redmond, there seem to be five-year plans of installing Windows automatically for everyone, whether they want it or not.
In other words, I'm worried that Windows's high market share is not based on actual demand. The artificially high percentage is then used by hardware and application makers to produce Windows-only products. Linux users are constantly told that there are no drivers due to low demand, which is kind of obvious as long as people cannot exercise their power of choice.
This seems like a good place in this discussion to point out my current cellphone plan which has zero fixed fees, you only pay by the minute. Then again, this is in Finland where you buy your own phone and get the service separately. Most plans here are practically unlimited, with a relatively high monthly fee that includes lots of free calling time.
You could try mind maps. They are more visually oriented than traditional note-taking techniques. I often find I can photographically recall parts of my mind maps during exams.
The ISO format is arguably the most sensible, since it follows the ordering of number systems as well, and hence plays well with list sorting. Of course the European date DD/MM/YYYY has an internally ordered logic, but in a way it's as stupid as listing prices in cents.euros.
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It was there in the BIOS of DOS machines, hardwired to soft reboot, before Windows even existed. Wikipedia seems to confirm my memories.
Well, that particular quantum-mechanical property is called 'spin' by pretty much all physicists, so I wouldn't call it a misnomer. It was originally thought to be actual rotation, since its behaviour mimics that of a charged rotating sphere in some ways. Now we know it isn't really spinning, but the name 'spin' has stuck since we don't have any better name for it.
Agreed. Why is it that computer geeks are always defending their lack of spelling/grammar in natural languages, while they (allegedly) work with programming languages that don't tolerate one single typo?
Score: +V, informative!
In other news, Dr. Watson commented on the lack of fecal matter.
Yes and no. Apparently, people who get honorary doctorates already have real master's degrees.
The mere possibility of porting to other platforms should make OpenGL more sensible choice from the very beginning. Of course porting is going to be a big and rare effort if you always have to rewrite the graphics stuff. I'm not just talking about Mac and Linux, but consoles and mobile devices as well.
Agreed! I'm not much of a gamer, but sometimes I fire up Tuxracer which runs very smoothly on my Intel 855/852 laptop. Beryl also runs fine.
It seems that many people have some kind of religion against integrated graphics, and they insist on buying external monster graphics cards no matter what kind of use. These are the same folks that insist on dedicated graphics memory without looking at any real world performance, even though things like AGP were specifically designed for fast access of motherboard RAM.
Then again, I also value open source and I like getting the necessary hardware drivers with the vanilla Linux kernel.
You can get many distros of Linux for zero money, but IMHO calling it 'freeware' misses the point of Free Software. One of these is that it's developed by a community of volunteers, whereas companies hire people to write freeware all the time. Also, 'freeware' has all the negative connotations of being 'cheap'.
Many sound cards have multiple DACs going to the same output. AFAIK, the Amiga had four DACs which were used by the first 4-channel trackers, as software mixing was computationally expensive at the time. This point is pretty much moot now, but you could argue that hardware mixing still produces better quality.
I also have a 1371 and IIRC the choice of two stereo DACs was made to dedicate one for the software synth. With proper drivers the card could appear as a vintage Soundblaster to DOS games, with PCM sound going directly to a hardware DAC.
Of course, it would be great to be able to tap into the separate outputs, but it would complicate matters in such low-end cards. For real audio work I prefer an external card anyway.
IIRC, the 'beige box' was conceived to give more humane look to early sharp-edged, industrial-style computers. Then sometime around the 1990s we realized the beige box was ugly and the more technological design was cool. So I for one don't welcome our new wooden beige box overlords.
I've been archiving music on DVDs for a couple of years, and just this week I decided to get an external hard drive instead. I figured the price per GB is almost equal; in Finland there's the 'tax' on blank DVDs, but not (yet) on hard drives.
Of course, a hard drive is more versatile and portable. My only worry so far has been that a broken DVD is much less of a loss than a broken HD.
Ape compresses a few % better than Flac at the expense of much more CPU usage. When compressing lots of CDs at once, the difference is significant. Flac was designed to be light on resources to facilitate portable devices, but it helps with modern computers as well.
Also, Ape is not free software, despite the availability of source for certain versions. It's only officially released for Windows.
So, in line with most others, I'd recommend Flac, but you might also look into WavPack as it also seems to be free software.
Sure, please tell me where I could get components for building a naked laptop.
Market economy relies on customer choice, on which production decisions are based. In Soviet Redmond, there seem to be five-year plans of installing Windows automatically for everyone, whether they want it or not.
In other words, I'm worried that Windows's high market share is not based on actual demand. The artificially high percentage is then used by hardware and application makers to produce Windows-only products. Linux users are constantly told that there are no drivers due to low demand, which is kind of obvious as long as people cannot exercise their power of choice.
So this is what the theory of cosmic inflation means!
This seems like a good place in this discussion to point out my current cellphone plan which has zero fixed fees, you only pay by the minute. Then again, this is in Finland where you buy your own phone and get the service separately. Most plans here are practically unlimited, with a relatively high monthly fee that includes lots of free calling time.
Emacs still needs a kernel. So your OS should properly be called Emacs/Linux.
Because, unlike dumb appliances, a computer can be used for lots of different tasks.
Also, as the AC pointed out, just because you don't need something doesn't mean nobody else does. But kudos for the correct spelling of 'theatre' :)
I've never used just 7 to denote the year 2007. However, Europeans can experience 13:37ness every day thanks to our 24-hour clock.
You could try mind maps. They are more visually oriented than traditional note-taking techniques. I often find I can photographically recall parts of my mind maps during exams.
The ISO format is arguably the most sensible, since it follows the ordering of number systems as well, and hence plays well with list sorting. Of course the European date DD/MM/YYYY has an internally ordered logic, but in a way it's as stupid as listing prices in cents.euros.
At least good old brushing works, since tooth is stronger than friction.
Don't forget Dilbert's BSA campaign.
People often doubt if you can do professional grade music production on Linux. I just tell them they don't know JACK.
Also, it's occasionally argued that it's good for developers to have underpowered machines, forcing them to avoid bloat.