I have another user account for browsing Facebook and other toys. This account doesn't have sound card access, so it also helps with FB notifications. There's practically no setup at all.
We might need a "reset", where ASIC is no longer viable, but I'm not sure that would still be possible.
Many if not most altcoins started because they wanted to avoid the ASIC path, by choosing more elaborate hash functions. Of course, it's always possible to design ASICs for these too, even if they end up looking like special versions of GPUs. Besides hash functions, many altcoins have other interesting features that might end up in Bitcoin some day.
However, it's easier to start using the altcoins themselves than hard fork Bitcoin. With cryptocurrencies and automated exchanges, there's less need for everyone to stick with the same coin.
If you do graphics intensive applications (image editing, video editing, CAD, etc) or applications that can benefit from offloading tasks to GPU (via whatever technology/cores/execution units/stream processors the cards offer), then possibly/probably but the improvement may not be worth the extra cost, power, and or noise that comes with the discrete GPU.
What do you mean by offloading? In my experience, image and video editing don't use enough GPU power to justify a discrete card. The main work is done on CPUs, and some OpenGL features might be used for filtering. Unless, of course, you offload the actual work to GPUs as well.
Even so, today's Intel graphics do plenty of OpenGL (see shameless plug for example). CAD will generally benefit from "real" GPUs due to better conformance/precision, not so much due to raw speed; see this Intel HD bug for example.
Video encoding/decoding might be a useful offload, but software will give you much better encoding quality. Hardware encoding is mainly useful if you need real-time encoding for live streaming. Hardware decoding is more generally useful and you'll find it on many Intel HDs too.
Heavier Open[CG]L is an obvious reason to get a discrete GPU, but anything else, not so much.
If you look at 6+2 pin cables on PSUs, you'll see that the +2 pins are simply extensions of the 6-pin plug. You're not getting more physical pairs in those 6+2 pin cables, yet you're drawing up to twice the current! OUT OF SPEC!!! DOOM AND GLOOM!!! Oh wait, it's completely fine.
What about the PSU? Most cables (esp. modular ones) will happily mix 6 and 8 pin versions with the 2-pin ground-only bit on the side, but some older 6-pin-only versions do exist. You'll find these on older PSUs that might not be able to handle the extra amperage.
On a side note, if you're worried about the cables themselves, be more worried about crimp and solder joints.
I did a school project on hoverboard technology back in the day. Every time I mention this and the unlikely practicality of the lightning-like ionization levels required, someone invariably points out how cool that would be, power consumption and safety be damned.
Many of the Atom based notebooks are 64 bit compatible with a minor performance loss.
What performance loss? The unbearable slowness of extra registers and instructions? (x86-64 guarantees SSE2, which might not be implemented in a generic i386/i686 binary distro.)
It's a good point in general, though -- a lot of Atoms are 64-bit. I personally have a Mini-DTX board (aka Mini-ITX with another PCIe slot) with an Atom from 2010 in active service.
There are plenty of examples of indirect evaporative cooling throughout history as well. Persian wind catchers inducinging a draft to a wet well below, cooling the stone floor above.
I find it really funny that bitcoin enthusiasts go on both about the blockchain providing a record of transactions and how it's an anonymous currency.
Hey kids, I've got dollar bills with RFID chips on them to sell you along with that bridge you are stupid enough to buy.
I never said anything about "anonymous" in my post. The word I used is "pseudonymous". The analogy with dollar bills is quite apt, though -- it's like tracking by serial numbers, which is only useful if you can establish a connection between a person and the number. With Bitcoin this is even harder, because it's easy to create throwaway addresses.
Both tulips and gold suck big time if you need to send them instantly* across the globe.
Get this through your thick skull: A huge, overwhelming majority of people on this planet DO NOT NEED to transfer money across the globe.
So if you don't need it, nobody needs it? What about the countless payments to online stores with Visa, etc? Besides, I don't see how this has anything to do with (a) my original post, or (b) the thickness of my cranium.
It's a completely open-source scam. If you don't like or understand it, just keep using proprietary alternatives.
The "understanding" bit involves doing your homework when it comes to mining profitability. If you expect Bitcoin value to increase in the future, it's much easier to buy some directly. If not, then maybe there's not much point in mining either.
Ever had trouble solving a problem, took a break and did something completely different, like take a shower, and *bam* the answer popped into your head while you washed your hair?
I've certainly experienced this quite a few times. But how do you explain all the really really smart guys that are completely bald?
I find it depends on who's driving the switching. If I'm doing it at my own pace it's much less annoying than when some asshat is wittering or interrupting.
Maybe because I switch as I'm coming out of "the zone" anyway?
Especially with the last bit, this doesn't seem like multitasking in the usual problematic sense. I often find a great synergy with 2 or 3 projects going on during the same week, as doing one will give a nice break from the others. I might spend an hour or a few on one at a time, but sometimes the runs get shorter -- think compilation or cooking breaks, for example. It's well known that daemonizing your problems into the background while doing something else often helps you find unexpected solutions.
IM(HO|E), multitasking becomes problematic when you try to maintain the state of several projects in the foreground at once. You're not really switching between them. This is particularly bad if handling a social situation is one of those projects, so it's impossible to do real programming while engaged with clients, for example. It's like normal people have a social processing unit to offload all that, and you have to do it all in software, but then again you have more silicon for the CPU (conscious processing unit).
you wouldn't be bothering with "learning to code" today.
I completely disagree. I got into coding when I was in 5th or 6th grade with Hypercard. Then (mostly in order) Applescript, the Mac debugger, my TI-89 calculator, Matlab, PHP, Java, C, C++, Python.
I'm just a Mechanical Engineer. My job title has nothing to do with any of those languages. No interview I've ever had has ever even touched on how much of those I knew. They're just tools I use to get my job done.
I went back to school for advanced math, after being inspired by programming such as Project Euler. A lot of pure math concepts were instantly recognizable as data structures, for example. As a consequence, I think I got much more out of the courses than somebody who just builds on theory without any application ideas.
The same idea applies to most of my life interests. For example, I've been playing with electronics since about 8, but it was only in my 20s that I had learned enough theory and related subjects to make a professional impact. Another example is teaching high school classes for 2 years without full qualifications. As I later went through teacher training, I could relate to the ugly reality of my experiences rather than simply taking in the theory.
How do you know what you want to do, unless you try it out for real? Do you spend 10 years studying theory, only to realize the real thing is nothing like you imagined?
Athletes and musicians need to start early to get to the top, in order to mould their bodies into the profession. They have plenty of time to learn about music theory and physiology later. We should be doing more of this in other subjects -- for example, electronics and programming also involve motor skills.
OTOH, there are also good reasons to learn theory when you're younger. Learn what it's like to dive into a textbook with a complete focus, because you'll be doing that at some later stage anyway.
While I've mentioned some specific examples, my general message is that people should be doing some kind of applied, hands-on work early enough. At the same time, I'm worried that our protectionist culture will prevent young people from practicing things like electronics or chemistry. Future kids might encounter years and years of safety training before being allowed into any real work, by which time it will be too late to develop good practical skills.
I think you're being sarcastic, but seriously... why not have a single universal port standard for everything from USB-like peripherals to networking to video in/out to charging etc???
If that were technically feasible, it would only stay universal for a while. USB is now 'universal' because it has the old and new interfaces bolted together for backwards compatibility. It has made a legacy port out of itself.
A related issue is dragging VGA along as the backwards compatible standard, even when the displays themselves are digital.
I agree that microcode/firmware can be a problem regardless of the OS. Nevertheless, the more general issue remains: if someone has unauthorized remote access to your machine, they might do a little more than just take photos.
This might be contrasted with the recent discussion Facebook will be all video. I can sort of understand how blog posts and their comments are being replaced by video recordings, though I'm not sure about the "why". In this sense, live video would be a natural replacement for live chat, but apparently that's not what's happening here. It's more like live broadcast, which would tie in with another recent discussion. That is, if "what I'm having for breakfast just now" counts as news.
You are assuming the only kind of emergency involves you needing to call 911. Perhaps the babysitter/hospital is trying to reach you to tell you that your kid fell down the stairs, is at the ER, and they need your consent to operate / put him on a helicopter to another hospital. Perhaps you are a volunteer firefighter and there is a fire.
Good point. But as for the firefighter, if you need to be on call, you shouldn't be going to a place where phones are banned in the first place.
Music is all or nothing for me, I don't care to listen to it as background music. If I want to put everything else down and listen, these days it will be off an iPad/iPad or the laptop, lossless audio files.
This. I sometimes DJ at society/staff parties, and it's always great fun when somebody asks me to use Spotify or something to get their favourite track if I don't have it. First, I wouldn't install any of that closed software on my personal machine, let alone a closed OS to use it. Second, my idea of DJing involves playing complete songs uninterrupted by adverts or buffering... buffering.. buffering.
Also, I think streaming is dumb from a technical standpoint, especially over cell networks. I guess the rental aspect keeps bean counters happy, but it's such a waste of tech.
You can call emergency numbers even without a SIM card. I'm sure it would be possible to have a local cell at the venue, providing a strong signal so that phones wouldn't use any other service, and it would only enable emergency calls. Security staff would of course have some other kind of radio comms.
This isn't the whole story, your gut bacteria also make a difference. People have different distributions of gut flora, and sometimes a fecal transplant makes a huge difference, but different diets also promote different bacteria.
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I have another user account for browsing Facebook and other toys. This account doesn't have sound card access, so it also helps with FB notifications. There's practically no setup at all.
We might need a "reset", where ASIC is no longer viable, but I'm not sure that would still be possible.
Many if not most altcoins started because they wanted to avoid the ASIC path, by choosing more elaborate hash functions. Of course, it's always possible to design ASICs for these too, even if they end up looking like special versions of GPUs. Besides hash functions, many altcoins have other interesting features that might end up in Bitcoin some day.
However, it's easier to start using the altcoins themselves than hard fork Bitcoin. With cryptocurrencies and automated exchanges, there's less need for everyone to stick with the same coin.
If you do graphics intensive applications (image editing, video editing, CAD, etc) or applications that can benefit from offloading tasks to GPU (via whatever technology/cores/execution units/stream processors the cards offer), then possibly/probably but the improvement may not be worth the extra cost, power, and or noise that comes with the discrete GPU.
What do you mean by offloading? In my experience, image and video editing don't use enough GPU power to justify a discrete card. The main work is done on CPUs, and some OpenGL features might be used for filtering. Unless, of course, you offload the actual work to GPUs as well.
Even so, today's Intel graphics do plenty of OpenGL (see shameless plug for example). CAD will generally benefit from "real" GPUs due to better conformance/precision, not so much due to raw speed; see this Intel HD bug for example.
Video encoding/decoding might be a useful offload, but software will give you much better encoding quality. Hardware encoding is mainly useful if you need real-time encoding for live streaming. Hardware decoding is more generally useful and you'll find it on many Intel HDs too.
Heavier Open[CG]L is an obvious reason to get a discrete GPU, but anything else, not so much.
If you look at 6+2 pin cables on PSUs, you'll see that the +2 pins are simply extensions of the 6-pin plug. You're not getting more physical pairs in those 6+2 pin cables, yet you're drawing up to twice the current! OUT OF SPEC!!! DOOM AND GLOOM!!! Oh wait, it's completely fine.
What about the PSU? Most cables (esp. modular ones) will happily mix 6 and 8 pin versions with the 2-pin ground-only bit on the side, but some older 6-pin-only versions do exist. You'll find these on older PSUs that might not be able to handle the extra amperage.
On a side note, if you're worried about the cables themselves, be more worried about crimp and solder joints.
I did a school project on hoverboard technology back in the day. Every time I mention this and the unlikely practicality of the lightning-like ionization levels required, someone invariably points out how cool that would be, power consumption and safety be damned.
Many of the Atom based notebooks are 64 bit compatible with a minor performance loss.
What performance loss? The unbearable slowness of extra registers and instructions? (x86-64 guarantees SSE2, which might not be implemented in a generic i386/i686 binary distro.)
It's a good point in general, though -- a lot of Atoms are 64-bit. I personally have a Mini-DTX board (aka Mini-ITX with another PCIe slot) with an Atom from 2010 in active service.
There are plenty of examples of indirect evaporative cooling throughout history as well. Persian wind catchers inducinging a draft to a wet well below, cooling the stone floor above.
Linky: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Tits or it didn't happen.
I find it really funny that bitcoin enthusiasts go on both about the blockchain providing a record of transactions and how it's an anonymous currency. Hey kids, I've got dollar bills with RFID chips on them to sell you along with that bridge you are stupid enough to buy.
I never said anything about "anonymous" in my post. The word I used is "pseudonymous". The analogy with dollar bills is quite apt, though -- it's like tracking by serial numbers, which is only useful if you can establish a connection between a person and the number. With Bitcoin this is even harder, because it's easy to create throwaway addresses.
Both tulips and gold suck big time if you need to send them instantly* across the globe.
Get this through your thick skull: A huge, overwhelming majority of people on this planet DO NOT NEED to transfer money across the globe.
So if you don't need it, nobody needs it? What about the countless payments to online stores with Visa, etc? Besides, I don't see how this has anything to do with (a) my original post, or (b) the thickness of my cranium.
It's a completely open-source scam. If you don't like or understand it, just keep using proprietary alternatives.
The "understanding" bit involves doing your homework when it comes to mining profitability. If you expect Bitcoin value to increase in the future, it's much easier to buy some directly. If not, then maybe there's not much point in mining either.
We're not going to buy your overpriced tulips.
Tulips at least look pretty. And gold is shiny. Bitcoin has all the same problems and doesn't even have anything nice to look at.
Both tulips and gold suck big time if you need to send them instantly* across the globe.
*(plus pseudonymously, and independent of any business or government, but I guess you could do with tulips or gold too)
Ever had trouble solving a problem, took a break and did something completely different, like take a shower, and *bam* the answer popped into your head while you washed your hair?
I've certainly experienced this quite a few times. But how do you explain all the really really smart guys that are completely bald?
I find it depends on who's driving the switching. If I'm doing it at my own pace it's much less annoying than when some asshat is wittering or interrupting.
Maybe because I switch as I'm coming out of "the zone" anyway?
Especially with the last bit, this doesn't seem like multitasking in the usual problematic sense. I often find a great synergy with 2 or 3 projects going on during the same week, as doing one will give a nice break from the others. I might spend an hour or a few on one at a time, but sometimes the runs get shorter -- think compilation or cooking breaks, for example. It's well known that daemonizing your problems into the background while doing something else often helps you find unexpected solutions.
IM(HO|E), multitasking becomes problematic when you try to maintain the state of several projects in the foreground at once. You're not really switching between them. This is particularly bad if handling a social situation is one of those projects, so it's impossible to do real programming while engaged with clients, for example. It's like normal people have a social processing unit to offload all that, and you have to do it all in software, but then again you have more silicon for the CPU (conscious processing unit).
you wouldn't be bothering with "learning to code" today.
I completely disagree. I got into coding when I was in 5th or 6th grade with Hypercard. Then (mostly in order) Applescript, the Mac debugger, my TI-89 calculator, Matlab, PHP, Java, C, C++, Python.
I'm just a Mechanical Engineer. My job title has nothing to do with any of those languages. No interview I've ever had has ever even touched on how much of those I knew. They're just tools I use to get my job done.
I went back to school for advanced math, after being inspired by programming such as Project Euler. A lot of pure math concepts were instantly recognizable as data structures, for example. As a consequence, I think I got much more out of the courses than somebody who just builds on theory without any application ideas.
The same idea applies to most of my life interests. For example, I've been playing with electronics since about 8, but it was only in my 20s that I had learned enough theory and related subjects to make a professional impact. Another example is teaching high school classes for 2 years without full qualifications. As I later went through teacher training, I could relate to the ugly reality of my experiences rather than simply taking in the theory.
How do you know what you want to do, unless you try it out for real? Do you spend 10 years studying theory, only to realize the real thing is nothing like you imagined?
Athletes and musicians need to start early to get to the top, in order to mould their bodies into the profession. They have plenty of time to learn about music theory and physiology later. We should be doing more of this in other subjects -- for example, electronics and programming also involve motor skills.
OTOH, there are also good reasons to learn theory when you're younger. Learn what it's like to dive into a textbook with a complete focus, because you'll be doing that at some later stage anyway.
While I've mentioned some specific examples, my general message is that people should be doing some kind of applied, hands-on work early enough. At the same time, I'm worried that our protectionist culture will prevent young people from practicing things like electronics or chemistry. Future kids might encounter years and years of safety training before being allowed into any real work, by which time it will be too late to develop good practical skills.
I think you're being sarcastic, but seriously... why not have a single universal port standard for everything from USB-like peripherals to networking to video in/out to charging etc???
If that were technically feasible, it would only stay universal for a while. USB is now 'universal' because it has the old and new interfaces bolted together for backwards compatibility. It has made a legacy port out of itself.
A related issue is dragging VGA along as the backwards compatible standard, even when the displays themselves are digital.
I agree that microcode/firmware can be a problem regardless of the OS. Nevertheless, the more general issue remains: if someone has unauthorized remote access to your machine, they might do a little more than just take photos.
If your security is bad enough that other people can access your devices, then you probably have bigger problems than people seeing your junk.
No, but your sexting will make you look like a magic unicorn.
This might be contrasted with the recent discussion Facebook will be all video. I can sort of understand how blog posts and their comments are being replaced by video recordings, though I'm not sure about the "why". In this sense, live video would be a natural replacement for live chat, but apparently that's not what's happening here. It's more like live broadcast, which would tie in with another recent discussion. That is, if "what I'm having for breakfast just now" counts as news.
You are assuming the only kind of emergency involves you needing to call 911. Perhaps the babysitter/hospital is trying to reach you to tell you that your kid fell down the stairs, is at the ER, and they need your consent to operate / put him on a helicopter to another hospital. Perhaps you are a volunteer firefighter and there is a fire.
Good point. But as for the firefighter, if you need to be on call, you shouldn't be going to a place where phones are banned in the first place.
Music is all or nothing for me, I don't care to listen to it as background music. If I want to put everything else down and listen, these days it will be off an iPad/iPad or the laptop, lossless audio files.
This. I sometimes DJ at society/staff parties, and it's always great fun when somebody asks me to use Spotify or something to get their favourite track if I don't have it. First, I wouldn't install any of that closed software on my personal machine, let alone a closed OS to use it. Second, my idea of DJing involves playing complete songs uninterrupted by adverts or buffering... buffering.. buffering.
Also, I think streaming is dumb from a technical standpoint, especially over cell networks. I guess the rental aspect keeps bean counters happy, but it's such a waste of tech.
You can call emergency numbers even without a SIM card. I'm sure it would be possible to have a local cell at the venue, providing a strong signal so that phones wouldn't use any other service, and it would only enable emergency calls. Security staff would of course have some other kind of radio comms.
Why do you want a Bluetooth toothbrush anyway,
I like my teeth white rather than blue, thanks.
This isn't the whole story, your gut bacteria also make a difference. People have different distributions of gut flora, and sometimes a fecal transplant makes a huge difference, but different diets also promote different bacteria.