I'd like an SPU. Geeks don't have dedicated hardware for social situations, so we have to do our socializing in software on the CPU, which is very exhausting.
I'd actually prefer a 1.5 cm thick phone that would last me 2-3 days on battery. But it seems the vast majority of the population are form-over-function people, so I have to suffer with too-thin phones with insufficient battery life.
My Nokia 8110 4G is just under 1.5 cm thick and lasts me about 2 weeks on battery. It doesn't count as a "smart"phone but there's a workable web browser and Google maps with GPS. I mainly chose this model for its WLAN hotspot capabilities, as I prefer to keep the smarts on a computer I can control.
Futurologist Osmo A. Wiio said that people overestimate exponential growth in the short term, and underestimate it in the long term. For example, around the turn of the millennium I got interested in wearable computing and started reading about small single-board computers that might be applied to the idea with some hacking. A few years went by, and suddenly these consumer-friendly pocket computers were everywhere, in the form of "internet tablets" and early smartphones. We expect steady, linear progress based on what we know about today's tech, but in reality there's a mix of exponential growth (better tech helps you develop better tech) and sudden leaps (more marketing fads than genuine discoveries).
There's also a social dimension about smaller computers that helps explain the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets. If you had a computer at home in the 1980s, you usually had a dedicated computer desk at some remote corner of the house. It was a work/hobby thing, completely detached from social life and entertainment. Laptops changed things as you might bring one to a dinner table (obviously not during actual dinner, you insensitive clod) and converse with other people. It may have been rude, but at least you could have some face-to-face contact without a huge CRT at your eye level. So in this human contact sense, tablets and smartphones were the killer app, because they could be completely unobtrusive in a social setting. You could have your computer with you and still be present with your family, instead of being hunched in the corner in the glow of a CRT.
So the cool and social kids flocked to smartphones because you could have all these cool things without geeking out in the basement. But we all know it was downhill from then on. Because computers are so wonderful.
Well, we have hover boards* and androids**. We also have works of popular culture that are invariably termed "epic", despite not being millennia-old heroic tales of the fate of a nation. Today is all about image, not actual technological achievements.
*(They don't actually hover, it's just a marketing slogan.)
**(Mass surveillance devices posing as portable telephones. Named after the nickname of a guy and nothing to do with actual human-like robots, yet the company has threatened to sue an actual robotics company for using a similar name.)
What I didn't expect is the reasons why these technologies came about:... to post videos of cats.
An early milestone in computing was the Jacquard Loom, which was essentially a way to print digital images, including the inventor's selfie. Since then we've gone a full circle and ended up staring at our own asses on Instagram.
Finland has a pretty low population density, and I think we're doing pretty well with our internets. Of course, there's always going to be a cabin in the woods with lousy signal, and the overall pop density doesn't mean much when you look at urban areas.
A friend of mine had gigabit service at home in 2003, though I recall it was one of the test sites of an ISP. I can currently have GbE at home for 60 eur/month, but I have no need for those speeds. Instead, I pay 5 eur for 50/10 Mbit, and I can still enjoy the stability of Ethernet instead of having to deal with crappy modems.
Back in the 90s, all the cool kids used to laugh at us nerds for having a (social) life around computers and electronic gadgets. Fast forward about 15 years, and those cool kids start flocking to Facebook and getting addicted to "smart"phones. Eventually, it doesn't help if you stay away from FB yourself, the web is ruined for everyone.
On the actual tech side, the industry has become a kind of push-pull feedback system. Traditionally, tech was developed in a forward sense to become more capable, but due to DRM, a lot of effort is spent on pushing back on those capabilities. You're paying more to get less, because of all the anti-tech tech that has to be developed. For example, DRM in game consoles means you cannot program the hardware you own, with the PS3 as probably the saddest example. And as a consumer, you've paid for somebody to develop that DRM.
One symptom of both of the above issues is the appification of the web. I'm guessing things like Instagram want to keep users on the app rather than the web interface, in order to have more control on ads and tracking. I'm part of the problem as I use Instagram to promote my work, but the practical experience is kind of clunky: after using a real computer to make a video, you have to use a toy machine that runs the IG app to post it (I use Android-x86 on an old netbook).
To me, a central part of the dream/prediction was that computers become universal tools.
For example, in 2000 I remember arguing that instead of the digital TV network, we should instead build better Internet infrastructure, because that would also work for TV programming, plus a lot more. Well, we spent a ton on the digital TV tech and people had to buy new receivers. Of course, about a decade later they had a new cycle of upgrade to watch things like Netflix. Meanwhile, I'd been using computers to watch movies and TV series since 2001, but I guess I was spoiled by fast campus Internet, and didn't realize how long it would take to get similar speeds to the masses.
Well, that was kind of a detour -- the TV did get integrated with the computer eventually. But the general appification/smartphone trend is what's breaking the ideal now. You can't use a single general-purpose computer to do everything online, because some things are only published as smartphone apps (and running Android-x86 on a VM doesn't quite cut it). I guess people really want different appliances for different things, such as "smart" TVs for watching Netflix.
Still, I'm mostly happy with how the tech has progressed. I can mostly stay away from the social media rat race and focus on doing my own thing on faster and better hardware. At the same time I'm a bit wary of how things are going. I try to hold on to good hardware as I'm not sure if general purpose computers will be available forever.
Hey, at least it has dedicated PgUp/Dn keys which is a luxury these days;) A lot of laptop keyboards only have Home/End/PgUp/Dn accessible via Fn on the arrow keys, and I've seen these since the early 2000s. I agree that laptop keyboards in general are crap, though. Thinkpads were nice until 2013 or so.
The UHS-I is just a speed class. And here I was thinking that after regular SD, SDHC and SDXC they just had to make yet another backwards-incompatible revision.
most modern music is recorded and mixed at 24 bits or higher, there is more than enough dynamic range headroom... feel free to find some new criticisms.
I agree. I do criticize statements like this from the original post:
So the digital sample of the waveform can perfectly recreate the original analog waveform (within the chose frequency limit).
The OP only talks about the Nyquist limit without any consideration to bit depth or quantization. If it were only about the Nyquist frequency, CDs would only need 1-bit converters at 44.1 kHz, rather than 16-bit.
My former home town has a medieval castle right by the center, and it gives a nice sense of history to the whole place. I don't need a cosplay to get that feeling. I guess it's different in a more modern environment, which is why I'd imagine such fairs are more common in the US.
On the other side of the equation, selling vinyl and cassette makes a great business, because they cannot be copied exactly like CDs. So it's no wonder it's something the music industry would try in order to stay afloat. But I wonder how well this particular hipster fad fares with the increasing awareness of plastic waste issues.
Nyquist's theorem only deals with the sampling rate, and assumes a few idealizations about the other factors. For starters, sampling at 16 bits means you only have 65536 discrete signal levels, so you get quantization noise. It's technically worse than analog noise as it's not random.
Also, Nyquist assumes pointlike sampling, whereas real sampling always integrates over some finite time.
Of course, engineers know these things and take them into account. But Nyquist alone doesn't explain why you should record at 24 bits instead of 16 or 8.
BTW, you can also reduce quantization noise by using higher sampling rates: doubling the rate gives you effectively one more bit of resolution. This is why some systems can be 1-bit with insanely high sampling rates.
Proof Of Stake... tends to work more like fiat currency than gold mining... the rich tend to get richer off the interest, and the rest of us just tend of stagnate where we are.
IMHO, a fixed percentage interest is fair. The rich don't get proportionally any richer because everyone's balance increases by the same factor. This is also how Proof of Stake in cryptocurrencies has worked since it was introduced in Peercoin around 2012.
The problem with Ethereum is that you need a minimum balance in order to gain any interest. The rich will get proportionally richer, for no good reason. This idea is similar to masternodes used in several coins. Thus cryptocurrencies that were supposed to level the playing field and fight the man have become a sad parody of themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
Sun: We're the "dot" in the "dot com".
Google: We're the "mess" in "messaging".
A clear reference to AGW officianados
Real scientist don't need no spelling either. The meaning of their theories should be obvious from the context.
Corollary: real scientists don't need no data. If a theory is any good, it can practically prove itself without any pesky real-world facts.
Don't worry, you can still get credit for exemplifying Muphry's Law. (Or perhaps there's an obscure reference to a Doctor Who actor that I don't get.)
I'd like an SPU. Geeks don't have dedicated hardware for social situations, so we have to do our socializing in software on the CPU, which is very exhausting.
It has a keyboard, so in my book it's an order of magnitude better than any shiny slab people call "smart""phones" these days.
Real Men use 6.3 mm.
Sounds Ent-ertaining.
I'd actually prefer a 1.5 cm thick phone that would last me 2-3 days on battery. But it seems the vast majority of the population are form-over-function people, so I have to suffer with too-thin phones with insufficient battery life.
My Nokia 8110 4G is just under 1.5 cm thick and lasts me about 2 weeks on battery. It doesn't count as a "smart"phone but there's a workable web browser and Google maps with GPS. I mainly chose this model for its WLAN hotspot capabilities, as I prefer to keep the smarts on a computer I can control.
Futurologist Osmo A. Wiio said that people overestimate exponential growth in the short term, and underestimate it in the long term. For example, around the turn of the millennium I got interested in wearable computing and started reading about small single-board computers that might be applied to the idea with some hacking. A few years went by, and suddenly these consumer-friendly pocket computers were everywhere, in the form of "internet tablets" and early smartphones. We expect steady, linear progress based on what we know about today's tech, but in reality there's a mix of exponential growth (better tech helps you develop better tech) and sudden leaps (more marketing fads than genuine discoveries).
There's also a social dimension about smaller computers that helps explain the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets. If you had a computer at home in the 1980s, you usually had a dedicated computer desk at some remote corner of the house. It was a work/hobby thing, completely detached from social life and entertainment. Laptops changed things as you might bring one to a dinner table (obviously not during actual dinner, you insensitive clod) and converse with other people. It may have been rude, but at least you could have some face-to-face contact without a huge CRT at your eye level. So in this human contact sense, tablets and smartphones were the killer app, because they could be completely unobtrusive in a social setting. You could have your computer with you and still be present with your family, instead of being hunched in the corner in the glow of a CRT.
So the cool and social kids flocked to smartphones because you could have all these cool things without geeking out in the basement. But we all know it was downhill from then on. Because computers are so wonderful.
No hover cars.
Well, we have hover boards* and androids**. We also have works of popular culture that are invariably termed "epic", despite not being millennia-old heroic tales of the fate of a nation. Today is all about image, not actual technological achievements.
*(They don't actually hover, it's just a marketing slogan.)
**(Mass surveillance devices posing as portable telephones. Named after the nickname of a guy and nothing to do with actual human-like robots, yet the company has threatened to sue an actual robotics company for using a similar name.)
What I didn't expect is the reasons why these technologies came about: ... to post videos of cats.
An early milestone in computing was the Jacquard Loom, which was essentially a way to print digital images, including the inventor's selfie. Since then we've gone a full circle and ended up staring at our own asses on Instagram.
Finland has a pretty low population density, and I think we're doing pretty well with our internets. Of course, there's always going to be a cabin in the woods with lousy signal, and the overall pop density doesn't mean much when you look at urban areas.
A friend of mine had gigabit service at home in 2003, though I recall it was one of the test sites of an ISP. I can currently have GbE at home for 60 eur/month, but I have no need for those speeds. Instead, I pay 5 eur for 50/10 Mbit, and I can still enjoy the stability of Ethernet instead of having to deal with crappy modems.
Back in the 90s, all the cool kids used to laugh at us nerds for having a (social) life around computers and electronic gadgets. Fast forward about 15 years, and those cool kids start flocking to Facebook and getting addicted to "smart"phones. Eventually, it doesn't help if you stay away from FB yourself, the web is ruined for everyone.
On the actual tech side, the industry has become a kind of push-pull feedback system. Traditionally, tech was developed in a forward sense to become more capable, but due to DRM, a lot of effort is spent on pushing back on those capabilities. You're paying more to get less, because of all the anti-tech tech that has to be developed. For example, DRM in game consoles means you cannot program the hardware you own, with the PS3 as probably the saddest example. And as a consumer, you've paid for somebody to develop that DRM.
One symptom of both of the above issues is the appification of the web. I'm guessing things like Instagram want to keep users on the app rather than the web interface, in order to have more control on ads and tracking. I'm part of the problem as I use Instagram to promote my work, but the practical experience is kind of clunky: after using a real computer to make a video, you have to use a toy machine that runs the IG app to post it (I use Android-x86 on an old netbook).
To me, a central part of the dream/prediction was that computers become universal tools. For example, in 2000 I remember arguing that instead of the digital TV network, we should instead build better Internet infrastructure, because that would also work for TV programming, plus a lot more. Well, we spent a ton on the digital TV tech and people had to buy new receivers. Of course, about a decade later they had a new cycle of upgrade to watch things like Netflix. Meanwhile, I'd been using computers to watch movies and TV series since 2001, but I guess I was spoiled by fast campus Internet, and didn't realize how long it would take to get similar speeds to the masses.
Well, that was kind of a detour -- the TV did get integrated with the computer eventually. But the general appification/smartphone trend is what's breaking the ideal now. You can't use a single general-purpose computer to do everything online, because some things are only published as smartphone apps (and running Android-x86 on a VM doesn't quite cut it). I guess people really want different appliances for different things, such as "smart" TVs for watching Netflix.
Still, I'm mostly happy with how the tech has progressed. I can mostly stay away from the social media rat race and focus on doing my own thing on faster and better hardware. At the same time I'm a bit wary of how things are going. I try to hold on to good hardware as I'm not sure if general purpose computers will be available forever.
Not with stupid keyboard and layouts where you accidentally keep pressing page up/down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Hey, at least it has dedicated PgUp/Dn keys which is a luxury these days ;) A lot of laptop keyboards only have Home/End/PgUp/Dn accessible via Fn on the arrow keys, and I've seen these since the early 2000s. I agree that laptop keyboards in general are crap, though. Thinkpads were nice until 2013 or so.
The UHS-I is just a speed class. And here I was thinking that after regular SD, SDHC and SDXC they just had to make yet another backwards-incompatible revision.
Dear Intel,
can you "deep learn" from your Meltdown and Spectre mistakes? Seriously, I have a Celeron from about 2005 with these vulnerabilities.
If the only tool you have is a MAMR, then every problem looks like a mouth.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
most modern music is recorded and mixed at 24 bits or higher, there is more than enough dynamic range headroom. .. feel free to find some new criticisms.
I agree. I do criticize statements like this from the original post:
So the digital sample of the waveform can perfectly recreate the original analog waveform (within the chose frequency limit).
The OP only talks about the Nyquist limit without any consideration to bit depth or quantization. If it were only about the Nyquist frequency, CDs would only need 1-bit converters at 44.1 kHz, rather than 16-bit.
My former home town has a medieval castle right by the center, and it gives a nice sense of history to the whole place. I don't need a cosplay to get that feeling. I guess it's different in a more modern environment, which is why I'd imagine such fairs are more common in the US.
On the other side of the equation, selling vinyl and cassette makes a great business, because they cannot be copied exactly like CDs. So it's no wonder it's something the music industry would try in order to stay afloat. But I wonder how well this particular hipster fad fares with the increasing awareness of plastic waste issues.
Nyquist's theorem only deals with the sampling rate, and assumes a few idealizations about the other factors. For starters, sampling at 16 bits means you only have 65536 discrete signal levels, so you get quantization noise. It's technically worse than analog noise as it's not random. Also, Nyquist assumes pointlike sampling, whereas real sampling always integrates over some finite time.
Of course, engineers know these things and take them into account. But Nyquist alone doesn't explain why you should record at 24 bits instead of 16 or 8.
BTW, you can also reduce quantization noise by using higher sampling rates: doubling the rate gives you effectively one more bit of resolution. This is why some systems can be 1-bit with insanely high sampling rates.
I'll believe this when these superconducting pigs levitate above magnets.
Proof Of Stake ... tends to work more like fiat currency than gold mining... the rich tend to get richer off the interest, and the rest of us just tend of stagnate where we are.
IMHO, a fixed percentage interest is fair. The rich don't get proportionally any richer because everyone's balance increases by the same factor. This is also how Proof of Stake in cryptocurrencies has worked since it was introduced in Peercoin around 2012.
The problem with Ethereum is that you need a minimum balance in order to gain any interest. The rich will get proportionally richer, for no good reason. This idea is similar to masternodes used in several coins. Thus cryptocurrencies that were supposed to level the playing field and fight the man have become a sad parody of themselves.