I also think it is much more geeky to say "I design microchips" than saying you program (give instructions to) chips that somebody else designed.
But that sounds more like doing the hardware design of the chip.
When you code FPGAs, you design electronic circuits at the gate level. I think that counts as hardware design. Besides FPGAs, the same design can be fabbed into real ASICs, and often the FPGA is simply used to prototype things before such production.
Seriously, this is a good point. Since taking up FPGA work, I've learned that "programming" simply means putting a bitstream on a chip, and the actual writing of the code should have a different name, such as "design" or "engineering". I also think it is much more geeky to say "I design microchips" than saying you program (give instructions to) chips that somebody else designed.
On a side note, some older network cards have sockets for boot EEPROMs, and you can use them to program compatible chips for any purpose, using flashrom from the coreboot project. However, they seem to have a limited number of address lines, so the full capacity of the chips is not exposed.
No, it doesn't. Yes, I know, I'm a blast at parties.
However, we are used to calling the company "Mokia" meaning screw-ups, whenever they do something stupid. Little did we know where the initial M would actually come from.
Female voices span a greater range of the audio frequency spectrum than male voices.
Citation, please? I think the opposite would be true. First of all, consonants have generally high frequencies and wide spectra, so the low male vowels will make the whole spectrum wider. Secondly, harmonic frequencies are integer multiples of the fundamental frequency, so a male voice has more of these harmonics within the audible range. This is why deep male voices are good test material for audio systems. For example, lossy compression schemes will remove some of the harmonics, so female voices would be easier to preserve.
Lower frequencies require bigger speakers, so it's easier to crank up the volume of a female voice using a smaller speaker.
True. This is one more reason why male voices are harder to reproduce well, so in the end we choose the one which sounds better after all the noise. The assumption of the narrower spectrum of female voice also means that energy is more concentrated, so it stands out better above the noise floor.
OK, so the entire process is not open source, but I think it is overall more open than stock CPUs. Besides, I find it much more geek-worthy to design my own circuits, rather than merely giving instructions to some other guy's circuit for which I don't even have schematics.
By the way, there are open source tools for some stages of FPGA work, at least synthesis and programming. I use UrJTAG all the time to program my chips on ARM and PPC, even if the bitfile must be built on x86 with closed tools.
In the same way as you can have fractions of a dollar. However, bitcoin is divisible down to 8 decimals. So even if the value of 1 BTC were one million dollars, you could still use them for small transactions.
Serial communication is 1-bit. It just takes a higher transfer rate compared to 8-bit parallel, for example. The essence of information transfer is how many total bits of information you have per second, not the size of the parallel bus you use to transfer them. In fact, no matter how many bits you use, the information is still in the timing of the edges, just like you said.
As for the 1-bit DAC, you can forget about PWM and delta-sigma for a while. They are refined implementations, but the basic ideas of Shannon and Nyquist work for a genuine, simple 1-bit DAC as well.
The problem with any digital audio system is quantization noise. Even if you fulfill the Nyquist criterion for frequencies, you have a limited number of signal levels. You can reduce this noise by oversampling. Basically, by 2x oversampling in a 1-bit DAC you can essentially create an average level halfway between 0 and 1. With higher oversampling, you can create more of these average levels. You can replace an 8-bit DAC by a 1-bit one, if the latter has 256x the sampling rate, and you should hear no difference. Actually, the latter should sound better, since it is easier to generate perfect 0 and 1 signal levels, compared to the 256 levels that may not be equally spaced.
It's hard to avoid hardcoded limits when you're working at a sufficiently low level. With networking, you'll probably want to do as much as possible in hardware to keep things fast, but that also means less flexibility. For example, IPv6 header size is fixed for these reasons. While I don't have any low-level network coding experience myself, I've developed FPGA accelerators for other applications, and I've come to appreciate the efficiency of fixed-size data structures. The more flexibility you want, the less it makes sense to have dedicated hardware instead of software.
The sinuous body of the snake is a perfect illustration. A few years ago, Duboule discovered in these animals a defect in the Hox gene that normally stops the vertebrae-making process. “Now we know what’s happening. The process doesn’t stop, and the snake embryo just keeps on making vertebrae, all identical, until the process just runs out of steam.”
Looks more like a feature than a bug to me. Another fine example of evolution by mutations.
I also failed to understand why "American" is the opposite of "evil". There are many things that are both, and many things that are neither. I understand why the DIY culture is associated with Americans, but then again, so is the consumerist sheeple culture.
I thought this too. Another practical reason is that the two liquids usually have different densities, so one will tend to float on top of the other.
I'm not sure about the stacking theory though. Long-chain molecules are not exactly straight, at least when in the liquid phase. If they were to stack neatly with each other, you would get a crystal. My impression is that polar interactions are generally stronger, so it is mainly water that squeezes out any non-polar intruders.
This does NOT fix images that are out of focus. This fixes motion blur.
The two are entirely unrelated.
Except that both are examples of convolution and deconvolution. In motion blur, the convolution kernel resembles a straight line in the direction of motion. In unfocused images, the kernel has circular symmetry. I used to write simple deconvolution algorithms about 10 years ago, but only for motion blur, where the kernel was easy to find from the conditions in a well-defined industrial setting. Unfocused images are harder to deal with, because the convolution kernel goes to zero at certain intervals, so information is destroyed.
As mentioned in my other post, here are some examples of more sophisticated image reconstruction from many years ago. When the kernel is unknown, the image can still be reconstructed using statistical techniques (basically because the kernel is the same for all points in the image).
Yes, this is basically deconvolution. If you don't know the convolution kernel, there are statistical methods to find the most likely solution for a given blurry image. I heard about these techniques about 10 years ago via prof. Steve Gull, one of the people behind MaxEnt.
I'm not really a programmer, but I work in a scientific field, and I hack on my spare time. I'm not much into games either; in recent years I've taken up some board games and retro platformers, but mostly as a social activity. When I need time off from some intense technical work, I switch to another keyboard to play something. At best, I've been working on a new song and a new coding/electronics project at the same time, and each provides a break from the other.
These days, I sometimes hear people wondering why I don't play something like chess or go -- you're a science geek, so obviously you should be good at such games. I've had times when I've spent some time learning chess with a couple of friends, and I did notice some improvement, but I never really got interested. The same has happened with RPGs.
As a teacher, I've come across the idea of learning games. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that in the past, good teachers were the ones who could do things in a playful way. Many teachers are not like this, but we could fix the situation by letting kids learn through FPSs, for example. I'm not sure this is really the way, since at some point you're going to have to do some real work, and find the playful attitude in that. I consider myself playful in many of the things I do, and it's probably the reason why I don't like typical games. IMHO, games highlight an artificial distinction between "work" and "play". I do use some level of role playing in my teaching, for example, but it's an integral part of the subject and not some separate piece of fun in the midst of work.
Slashdot Mirror
I also think it is much more geeky to say "I design microchips" than saying you program (give instructions to) chips that somebody else designed.
But that sounds more like doing the hardware design of the chip.
When you code FPGAs, you design electronic circuits at the gate level. I think that counts as hardware design. Besides FPGAs, the same design can be fabbed into real ASICs, and often the FPGA is simply used to prototype things before such production.
Seriously, this is a good point. Since taking up FPGA work, I've learned that "programming" simply means putting a bitstream on a chip, and the actual writing of the code should have a different name, such as "design" or "engineering". I also think it is much more geeky to say "I design microchips" than saying you program (give instructions to) chips that somebody else designed.
On a side note, some older network cards have sockets for boot EEPROMs, and you can use them to program compatible chips for any purpose, using flashrom from the coreboot project. However, they seem to have a limited number of address lines, so the full capacity of the chips is not exposed.
(Y) (This is supposedly a thumbs-up in some messaging systems, but to me it looks like a female form, which is likewise a positive statement.)
Because people are flocking to buy their N9 Linux phones.
Good thing people don't learn to use the key/screen lock. Otherwise your brother wouldn't call you that often ;)
In Finnish, Elop means "Trojan".
No, it doesn't. Yes, I know, I'm a blast at parties.
However, we are used to calling the company "Mokia" meaning screw-ups, whenever they do something stupid. Little did we know where the initial M would actually come from.
Female voices span a greater range of the audio frequency spectrum than male voices.
Citation, please? I think the opposite would be true. First of all, consonants have generally high frequencies and wide spectra, so the low male vowels will make the whole spectrum wider. Secondly, harmonic frequencies are integer multiples of the fundamental frequency, so a male voice has more of these harmonics within the audible range. This is why deep male voices are good test material for audio systems. For example, lossy compression schemes will remove some of the harmonics, so female voices would be easier to preserve.
Lower frequencies require bigger speakers, so it's easier to crank up the volume of a female voice using a smaller speaker.
True. This is one more reason why male voices are harder to reproduce well, so in the end we choose the one which sounds better after all the noise. The assumption of the narrower spectrum of female voice also means that energy is more concentrated, so it stands out better above the noise floor.
German Satellite to Fall From Sky.
Don't they all?
Well I hope Luna doesn't or it's going to make quite a splash.
Since when is the Moon German?
There are very few Illiterate people in Finland
Fixed that for you.
Sincerely,
a Finn.
OK, so the entire process is not open source, but I think it is overall more open than stock CPUs. Besides, I find it much more geek-worthy to design my own circuits, rather than merely giving instructions to some other guy's circuit for which I don't even have schematics.
By the way, there are open source tools for some stages of FPGA work, at least synthesis and programming. I use UrJTAG all the time to program my chips on ARM and PPC, even if the bitfile must be built on x86 with closed tools.
There is no value in Bitcoins, there never was, it was always a valueless concept.
How is it different from USD, then? Each currency is only worth what you can buy with it.
In the same way as you can have fractions of a dollar. However, bitcoin is divisible down to 8 decimals. So even if the value of 1 BTC were one million dollars, you could still use them for small transactions.
Serial communication is 1-bit. It just takes a higher transfer rate compared to 8-bit parallel, for example. The essence of information transfer is how many total bits of information you have per second, not the size of the parallel bus you use to transfer them. In fact, no matter how many bits you use, the information is still in the timing of the edges, just like you said.
As for the 1-bit DAC, you can forget about PWM and delta-sigma for a while. They are refined implementations, but the basic ideas of Shannon and Nyquist work for a genuine, simple 1-bit DAC as well.
The problem with any digital audio system is quantization noise. Even if you fulfill the Nyquist criterion for frequencies, you have a limited number of signal levels. You can reduce this noise by oversampling. Basically, by 2x oversampling in a 1-bit DAC you can essentially create an average level halfway between 0 and 1. With higher oversampling, you can create more of these average levels. You can replace an 8-bit DAC by a 1-bit one, if the latter has 256x the sampling rate, and you should hear no difference. Actually, the latter should sound better, since it is easier to generate perfect 0 and 1 signal levels, compared to the 256 levels that may not be equally spaced.
It's hard to avoid hardcoded limits when you're working at a sufficiently low level. With networking, you'll probably want to do as much as possible in hardware to keep things fast, but that also means less flexibility. For example, IPv6 header size is fixed for these reasons. While I don't have any low-level network coding experience myself, I've developed FPGA accelerators for other applications, and I've come to appreciate the efficiency of fixed-size data structures. The more flexibility you want, the less it makes sense to have dedicated hardware instead of software.
Are you suggesting the 64 to be replaced by something that isn't a power of two? What kind of a slashdotter are you anyway?
Earlier Linux smartphone platforms were called Maemo and Meego, so Mango is neither surprising nor original.
I've had it with these motherfucking eels on this motherfucking hovercraft!
The sinuous body of the snake is a perfect illustration. A few years ago, Duboule discovered in these animals a defect in the Hox gene that normally stops the vertebrae-making process. “Now we know what’s happening. The process doesn’t stop, and the snake embryo just keeps on making vertebrae, all identical, until the process just runs out of steam.”
Looks more like a feature than a bug to me. Another fine example of evolution by mutations.
I also failed to understand why "American" is the opposite of "evil". There are many things that are both, and many things that are neither. I understand why the DIY culture is associated with Americans, but then again, so is the consumerist sheeple culture.
I thought this too. Another practical reason is that the two liquids usually have different densities, so one will tend to float on top of the other.
I'm not sure about the stacking theory though. Long-chain molecules are not exactly straight, at least when in the liquid phase. If they were to stack neatly with each other, you would get a crystal. My impression is that polar interactions are generally stronger, so it is mainly water that squeezes out any non-polar intruders.
http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/
This does NOT fix images that are out of focus. This fixes motion blur. The two are entirely unrelated.
Except that both are examples of convolution and deconvolution. In motion blur, the convolution kernel resembles a straight line in the direction of motion. In unfocused images, the kernel has circular symmetry. I used to write simple deconvolution algorithms about 10 years ago, but only for motion blur, where the kernel was easy to find from the conditions in a well-defined industrial setting. Unfocused images are harder to deal with, because the convolution kernel goes to zero at certain intervals, so information is destroyed.
As mentioned in my other post, here are some examples of more sophisticated image reconstruction from many years ago. When the kernel is unknown, the image can still be reconstructed using statistical techniques (basically because the kernel is the same for all points in the image).
Yes, this is basically deconvolution. If you don't know the convolution kernel, there are statistical methods to find the most likely solution for a given blurry image. I heard about these techniques about 10 years ago via prof. Steve Gull, one of the people behind MaxEnt.
I'm not really a programmer, but I work in a scientific field, and I hack on my spare time. I'm not much into games either; in recent years I've taken up some board games and retro platformers, but mostly as a social activity. When I need time off from some intense technical work, I switch to another keyboard to play something. At best, I've been working on a new song and a new coding/electronics project at the same time, and each provides a break from the other.
These days, I sometimes hear people wondering why I don't play something like chess or go -- you're a science geek, so obviously you should be good at such games. I've had times when I've spent some time learning chess with a couple of friends, and I did notice some improvement, but I never really got interested. The same has happened with RPGs.
As a teacher, I've come across the idea of learning games. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that in the past, good teachers were the ones who could do things in a playful way. Many teachers are not like this, but we could fix the situation by letting kids learn through FPSs, for example. I'm not sure this is really the way, since at some point you're going to have to do some real work, and find the playful attitude in that. I consider myself playful in many of the things I do, and it's probably the reason why I don't like typical games. IMHO, games highlight an artificial distinction between "work" and "play". I do use some level of role playing in my teaching, for example, but it's an integral part of the subject and not some separate piece of fun in the midst of work.
I don't care if you're an AC--THAT was funny!
Would you prefer him to be DC?