1. Get an FPGA devkit
2. Learn Verilog
3. Live on the bleeding edge between hardware and software. Dream of being a hardware guy that dreams of being a butterfly in the software world, and vice versa.
4.
5. Get chicks
6. Profit!
I have built passive-cooled machines since 2004 (or very nearly passive, with some machines having a single, huge, slow fan). The only way to make a PSU fanless is less wasted heat, or better efficiency. I don't care about a few wasted watts, when I have over half a kilowatt of computation going on, but I can't stand the noise of typical computer fans. High efficiency gear also tends to be very high quality for obvious reasons, so they last long. (I still have my first passive PSU from 2004, a precursor to the PicoPSUs.)
I also got initially excited about vector displays... and frankly, I don't see anything special about video compression with vectors. Compression is already done by other mathematical descriptions, such as Fourier/cosine transforms. In fact, there are MP3 decoders that give "extra" precision on output, because the stored sinusoidal wave has no resolution limit, even if it came from low-res samples initially.
Is that the same thing as being "twice as cold" or "twice as thin"?
You don't measure coldness, you measure temperature.
I agree with your general point, but I think there is a possible exception. Just recently here in Finland, the temperature went from -10 C to -20 C. I'd say that's a legitimate case of "twice as cold". Of course, temperature as a physical quantity is nonnegative (one Kelvin is a definite amount of kinetic energy). But in a natural scale where the zero is chosen by the freezing point of the essential substance behind weather and life, it makes sense to talk about "coldness".
In physics, a law is a very strong statement, it's not enough it if fits some data. For example, we have the law of conservation of energy, but the general theory of relativity. We know that the latter is not absolutely true at all levels of scale, but we believe that the former will hold nevertheless. That said, even a theory needs a pretty good track record, it's very far from a hypothesis.
In the past, some observations have been unfortunately named as laws, so we have things like power laws in statistical linguistics. It would be great to separate legal opinions of judges and juries from something that happens independent of puny humans, but this is the language we're stuck with for now. Incidentally, Newton's laws aren't that bad, you just have to be careful with the frame of reference and the definition of momentum (It's F = dp/dt, not just F = ma). Just like the law of conservation of energy holds after slight refinements to our idea of energy.
(I am a physicist, but it's been a while. I am not ANAL.)
I don’t know. I knew a Polish physics professor who had defected in the 60’s. He though it would be a great idea to detonate a few nuclear bombs to increase earth’s tilt so the USSR would be where the North Pole is now.
Wow, this is interesting, especially the part where the country is compressed to fit onto a single point. Unless it's fine to have the other end of the country somewhere near the equator.
The cultural/linguistic region Scandinavia consists of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, because we share common culture, history, politics and linguistic roots. If you know even the slightest bit of history, disregarding Denmark as part of Scandinavia is quite ignorant.
OK, I was disregarding Denmark purely on a geographical basis, I do know my history (though from a twisted Finno-Ugric perspective;).
Scandinavia is a geographical area, a peninsula. I'd say Northern Finland is a part of Scandinavia in this sense. I'm not sure if Denmark should be included at all -- it's not exactly a part of the same peninsula, although they share a geological history.
Now, there's a completely different matter of Nordic Countries, which comprises Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. Foreigners often use Scandinavia as a synonym for Nordic Countries, a mistake that's easy to make.
Good point -- I guess I'd been too focused on the hype and discussions, rather than official announcements. Nevertheless, the lack of openness seems to be a key problem for many who expect this sort of hobbyist hardware to be more open.
I wouldn't say/. as a whole is hostile towards it, but I personally think RPi is a fad, just like Arduino. Real programmers have had their embedded hardware for decades, and the idea of their special toys becoming too mainstream can be intimidating. Of course, Real Men design their own hardware with FPGAs, instead of running someone else's CPUs;)
One particular gripe with RPi is the hypocrisy of being marketed as "open", but the graphics side is still a closed blob. I'm not sure you can ever satisfy the most extreme purists (waaa, where's my VHDL, where's my maskset) but at least it would be nice to have some honesty about what's actually open.
Slashdot Mirror
What if you count deaths per car? Then it might make sense.
Especially during the time when there were zero cars. Then a single car would have been responsible for infinite deaths.
1. Get an FPGA devkit
2. Learn Verilog
3. Live on the bleeding edge between hardware and software. Dream of being a hardware guy that dreams of being a butterfly in the software world, and vice versa.
4.
5. Get chicks
6. Profit!
Everything is natural. Nothing is supernatural. If it happens in this universe, then it happens in this universe.
What fan? There are passive-cooled PSUs too, if you want to take this to the logical extreme.
I have built passive-cooled machines since 2004 (or very nearly passive, with some machines having a single, huge, slow fan). The only way to make a PSU fanless is less wasted heat, or better efficiency. I don't care about a few wasted watts, when I have over half a kilowatt of computation going on, but I can't stand the noise of typical computer fans. High efficiency gear also tends to be very high quality for obvious reasons, so they last long. (I still have my first passive PSU from 2004, a precursor to the PicoPSUs.)
martial status
I'm a corporal and I know ninjutsu.
I also got initially excited about vector displays... and frankly, I don't see anything special about video compression with vectors. Compression is already done by other mathematical descriptions, such as Fourier/cosine transforms. In fact, there are MP3 decoders that give "extra" precision on output, because the stored sinusoidal wave has no resolution limit, even if it came from low-res samples initially.
2x slower?
Is that the same thing as being "twice as cold" or "twice as thin"?
You don't measure coldness, you measure temperature.
I agree with your general point, but I think there is a possible exception. Just recently here in Finland, the temperature went from -10 C to -20 C. I'd say that's a legitimate case of "twice as cold". Of course, temperature as a physical quantity is nonnegative (one Kelvin is a definite amount of kinetic energy). But in a natural scale where the zero is chosen by the freezing point of the essential substance behind weather and life, it makes sense to talk about "coldness".
do some of you people get hard ons from watching cryptic text on a screen in your off time?
Yes, because obviously the only positive things in life are of sexual nature.
In physics, a law is a very strong statement, it's not enough it if fits some data. For example, we have the law of conservation of energy, but the general theory of relativity. We know that the latter is not absolutely true at all levels of scale, but we believe that the former will hold nevertheless. That said, even a theory needs a pretty good track record, it's very far from a hypothesis.
In the past, some observations have been unfortunately named as laws, so we have things like power laws in statistical linguistics. It would be great to separate legal opinions of judges and juries from something that happens independent of puny humans, but this is the language we're stuck with for now. Incidentally, Newton's laws aren't that bad, you just have to be careful with the frame of reference and the definition of momentum (It's F = dp/dt, not just F = ma). Just like the law of conservation of energy holds after slight refinements to our idea of energy.
(I am a physicist, but it's been a while. I am not ANAL.)
I was about to make the same joke, but I never got close enough.
Free* gin, I'll drink to that!
*free as in beer
IN SPACE!
With friggin' LASERS!
I don’t know. I knew a Polish physics professor who had defected in the 60’s. He though it would be a great idea to detonate a few nuclear bombs to increase earth’s tilt so the USSR would be where the North Pole is now.
Wow, this is interesting, especially the part where the country is compressed to fit onto a single point. Unless it's fine to have the other end of the country somewhere near the equator.
I just PINE for the days of textmode email clients. (Seriously though, I still use Alpine.)
Today, I'm using OS X, which is far more stable than Linux in the last few years I was using it.
What happened?
Umm, you bought the hardware and the OS from the same company? What a coincidence they play along so well.
Any cipher worth its salt will have this characteristic.
I see what you did there.
The cultural/linguistic region Scandinavia consists of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, because we share common culture, history, politics and linguistic roots. If you know even the slightest bit of history, disregarding Denmark as part of Scandinavia is quite ignorant.
OK, I was disregarding Denmark purely on a geographical basis, I do know my history (though from a twisted Finno-Ugric perspective ;).
Scandinavia is a geographical area, a peninsula. I'd say Northern Finland is a part of Scandinavia in this sense. I'm not sure if Denmark should be included at all -- it's not exactly a part of the same peninsula, although they share a geological history.
Now, there's a completely different matter of Nordic Countries, which comprises Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. Foreigners often use Scandinavia as a synonym for Nordic Countries, a mistake that's easy to make.
In some cases, they are separated by a few micrometers of rubber.
Good point -- I guess I'd been too focused on the hype and discussions, rather than official announcements. Nevertheless, the lack of openness seems to be a key problem for many who expect this sort of hobbyist hardware to be more open.
I wouldn't say /. as a whole is hostile towards it, but I personally think RPi is a fad, just like Arduino. Real programmers have had their embedded hardware for decades, and the idea of their special toys becoming too mainstream can be intimidating. Of course, Real Men design their own hardware with FPGAs, instead of running someone else's CPUs ;)
One particular gripe with RPi is the hypocrisy of being marketed as "open", but the graphics side is still a closed blob. I'm not sure you can ever satisfy the most extreme purists (waaa, where's my VHDL, where's my maskset) but at least it would be nice to have some honesty about what's actually open.
Non-commercial copyright infringement is generally illegal but not criminal -- it is a matter of civil courts.
I'm afraid you are not a real gentooman, then ;)
If it's named after the species of penguin, it should be soft
Yes.