Freebsd does SMP quit well. They have/are redoing the whole SMP system.
If it works quite well, why does it need to be entirely redone?
When finished Freebsd will have and extremely good SMP, if not the best.
So advertise when it's finished."
They had one system, they decided they could do better, so they made a whole new one. Makes perfect sence. You can always improve something, (except coca cola). At some point you relize somethings need to be redone even if the current setup works well. Some times there is differant ways of doing something well. They had one, now switching to another that's even better.
Far as finished and such, as others pointed out it's very close. It works, people need to test it.
"Can't quite agree with that. With USB, you can hot-swap keyboards and mouse. This is rather important for servers and notebooks. You can even have multiple keyboards/mice plugged-in simultaneously.
Mayb be nothing you need, but you can't say there's nothing to gain. For the record, I dislike USB as much as anybody, but it's the only replacement for PS/2 available, so we're stuck with it (for slow, small, cheap devices at least)."
I have no problems with USB. I like it quit nice. But it wasn't till a bit over a year ago did I even own anything USB.
PS/2 is hotswappable most the time. But every now and then it doesn't work:( . Getting rid of PS/2 ports just means one less chip on the board. but no free'd up space. It basicly just has no big reason to go, just the same as it has no big reason to stay. it's not like a parallel port which takes tons of space and has been pretty much dead for 2 years. serial ports are still nice cause lots of people have devices that use them, and why get a serial to usb converter when you can have it on your board
Indeed Fortran is one I intend to learn, took C++ instead for school, don't know if I flubbed or not. But so much stuff in engineering is fortran. I know many people reviving old fortran programs from the 70's.
Matlab I have been learning through college, though I still don't use it as much as I should. Currently learning Simulink which is part of it. For any kind of dynamic model it is great.
I think your project is interesting and is in need of a webpage that can get slashdotted some day when you get something that works perfect. If you need more CPU you could come up with a distibuted program. Call it Folding@home...... oh wait. That would beg the question, what is more important, figuring out how protiens fold, or figureing out how to fold a protein? And which would people rather do.
" Here in Oz we have ADSL services that offer you 256K down and 64K up. Meaning that it is ok if you are surfing, and leeching files, but if someone else wants to get data off you, it is going to be limited to your upbound capacity."
I really don't want to hear the details of connections made in Oz. I would hope you have an upload capacity. At least the files your transmitting are small.
" Dunno about the rest of you, but my "broadband" connection is only a few millimeters wide..."
Your falling to fluff. What you see is deciving, your broadband is a fracton of a millimeter wide. ISP's just want you to think the sheething on that cat 5 is giving you a faster connection.
WTF, that was odd, windows pasted the wrong thing. Ignore the first 3 paragraphs. I don't know how that happened. I was responding to the lots of ram and number of models part.
"At anyrate For what I was doing I was best by myself. I've very much a stare at it and make it in my head kinda person. I'm not trying to snub people, I just can design things with more then just my brain. And I don't think people like standing around till I say cut this or drill this.
Thats not to say I don't need help at times. But it's just the way I work. The only human I can ever co design with is my father, we share the same brain. We come up with the same ideas at the same time.
Last night you would have looked at me staring at a truck for a few hours and making a few cuts. I just don't know what to tell people. Thats why I suck at groups."
Yeah, I know thats the problem with my way. But hey a Opteron or Athlon 64 might help you there. Would something like matlab work better for this over mathematica? I've never used mathematica so I can't say much for it. In some ways I think having something that takes more power and reasorces avalible is a good thing. Gives reason for bigger faster computers. Most everyone would like a dual athlon or quad xeon, but just have no use for it. Maybe when games implement 100% real time and full throughout correct physics, material properties, and thermodynamics we all will.
Does your program use some forward thinking methods to eliminate possibilities, cause it knows a certain fold now will make a later feature impossible? Also for my idea of a method I can so hear my fluids profs. yelling at me "buckingham pi theorem!" to eliminate massive numbers of models. Don't know how well it could apply to your model though, I'm sure it could in some ways. It basicly alows for the elimination of test by dimentionless analysis. instead of 10000 test because of many variables you only need to do 10.
This sounds like a very neat project. A differant way to approach it could be to have the thing to a all combinations of folding. That is give it instructions like, size of paper, and number of folds and have it produce as many combinations as it can, then give it what you want and it compairs to it's database of finished shapes. The data base could break down the results to groups of pattersn to shorten searchs. This of course would take massive computing.
example could be tell it, 8 by 8 paper and 1 fold, and it tries every shape it can come up with. that results in unique shape. Have a limit to variation though. Also have variables like how many levels of folds like max folds on top of folds.
This would be easier i think to design then trying to get it to produce what you want. Instead it checks it's ever growing inventory. But like I said, the power needed to produce all of them is way more do to near repeats and the 99.99999999% rate of garbage results.
Be very nice to see how you make out with this. I think if I ever get going on some of the ones I want to do the same problems will face me.
to bad computers didn't understand commands like " I want a thing that makes a widget that looks like so and is yea big, and has a little do jig coming of the thinger thats under the other thing"
"I can't wait for legacy free machines to become mainstream, firewire and USB is all most systems need for externam connectors anyway, besides video I/O that is. Thats probally why I'm looking at getting a mac next computer."
Well by it's very nature the world of non macs can't just ditch the old stuff, because it's still out there and it wants to connect to new stuff. People have a lot of hard ware that needs old connectors. And things like PS/2 ports, well there is not reason to get rid of them, they work great, take no more space then USB, and are going to be used for a mouse and keyboard as a PS/2 or USB, so you gain nothing by making them USB.
Apple can toss old tech because people arn't expanding their machines much, and they buy a new mac to get their upgrades. It's not that apple is smarter that they do away with the old. It's just they can get away with it.
Option 2) steps 1 through 37 involve walking through a lot of classrooms. 38) buy bolt cutters, or small torch 39) wait for right moment 40)run 41a) hook up to computer 41b) make one phone call 42b) tell self bail money is better spent on monitors.
"Freebsd 5.0 rocks! The only downside is that my Microsoft USB keyboard does not work with FreeBSD 5 on certain motherboards. I think its a bug and I hope its fixed soon."
might be the chipset. My old IBM would run beos fine, just had no keyboard support, they keyboard was fine, it was something on the board. I don't think there are many keyboard chipsets in the world, or whatever the computer uses for it. But i found a non standard one.
also you just gave me another reminder why I have no intent on buying a USB keyboard anytime. Heck I have a usb mouse and it's hooked into the PS/2 jack.
"trying to get a way to derive origami fold lines from a 3d model,"
Are you saying your trying to be able to say feed it in the specs of a coke can and it pops out the instructions on how to fold one? Sounds very neat. Also sounds like cheating. The guy who came up with the swan didn't have a 4 way Xeon:)
Also if that is what it is, have you ever tried to get it to do a slinky, or a Sphere?
yes all said mention items are on my desk now, to late for creative brain.
" Mathematica stuff. A bit of everything, my attention wanders. Statistical analysis of cellular automata, parafoil design (low speed dynamics), trying to get a way to derive origami fold lines from a 3d model, path tracing... just stuff."
haha, your mind sounds like mine. Once I graduate I intend to get working on various models (engine modeling mostly) and such that I dream up but have no time for. My dream model is to give a computer a few basic wants for an engine and it spits out the solution, the full solution. That could take all the supercomputers on earth to work through everyone of the few thousand variables with in the millions of values for each. I'm sure AMD will have a chip for it in a few years:)
I wish freeBSD had MOSIX, make a nice cluster. Though I hear there is similar things avalible or in the works.
Freebsd does SMP quit well. They have/are redoing the whole SMP system. It was slated for 5.0 but i don't know if it did or did not make it in. When finished Freebsd will have and extremely good SMP, if not the best.
Yeah but theres also a good chance it's not just your CPU involved with this. Graphics card could come into play as well, or even the mobo. Your using a 200 buck PC, can't expect to much. if you look at mini-itx forums what i said is correct. Also many don't recoment anything under 1ghz for playback such as you were doing. I know my 500 celeron never played dvd's or divX very well either.
"" "I'm personally going with RCA from now on for home electronics..."
You realise, I hope, that RCA doesn't own RCA anymore. Consumer electronics that say RCA or GE are really from the French company Thomson, although there's no telling from one model to the next who they actually get to do the manufacturing, but you can be pretty sure that they're Japanese, Chinese, or Korean.""
Yup Thomson owns them. RCA, GE, Sylvania, and a few others are all the same. They are almost a GM of home electronics. Stick a differnt "grill" on the same thing and sell it as it's respective brand. I would very much stay away from RCA (though some RCA stuff is pretty good) and if it's a GE don't get near it. I think they make the differance in brands by which brand gets the better stuff, RCA gets the better for sure.
I think one thing that is missed when it comes to home electronics and brands and such is most people don't care. They can't tell the differance between high end and low, and that's fine. If they can't tell, it doesn't really matter to them. Also most home electronics arn't worth spending good money on. In a few years you'll want something else with the new features, or replace the few year old device that is out of style. TV's and component stereo's are about the only thing that last a while. Most everything else is desposable. Whether its a can opener (I have no idea why electric can openers exist) or a computer, people buy stuff for the moment. If it breaks two years later oh well.
In the case of printers, I don't think they have gotten much cheaper. Even if they have, the quality of the print has gone way up. The typical printer is picked up for 100 bucks. When it needs ink the two cartiges will cost you 60-80 bucks. You might by a new ink cartrige set for it once but by the second time you will just get a new one. You can get a lexmark new for less then the ink of your old. I was tempted to get a new one everytime i ran out of ink. But i could deal with the environmental issue of tossing a printer every 3 months.
One thing i can say about what people by in printers is this. I buy HP's, I had a lexmark an d it was crap but i had it for 3 years even still. I finaly ditched it for a HP that was a model going out, 920c. It was 99 bucks and looked spiffy and had a nice flip up paper tray that made it take very little space. The model replacing it looks like crap and took more space. I am in no hurry to upgrade. My reason behind my printer has little to do with the printer and more about looks and a simple (though great) feature. People will go into the store and walk through fast and if the printers look like ass, they will just get a new ink cartridge and look again next time. I wonder if HP made their printers look like ass to sell more ink cartridges.
Also the price of printers blow my mind. The fact a inkjet even works amazes me.
"" yeah, but once you factor in that C3 1ghz is about the same speed as a PII in the 300Mhz range or so, it's not so great for speed. It is low power though.""
a 1ghz C3 would be about equal to a 750 PII. The accepted approximation is 3/4 of a PIII.
"" Completely off-topic I know, but I wish a few people would actually check out the "Deep South" before putting it down. And no, watching "Deliverence" and "The Dukes of Hazzard" doesn't count. Speaking as a geek who lives in the Nashville TN area, let me give you a few facts -
We actually have floors here, not dirt and hay.
We wear shoes!
Indoor plumbing, even!
There are radio stations that do not play country. Really. There are some of us here who have never set foot in the "Grand Ole Opry."
Oh, and before you start talking politics and race, you *really* need to catch up. A good friend of mine has told me that she experienced more racism living in the Northwest (Oregon, Washington) than she has ever experienced down here in the south (and she lives in Alabama, no less). Racism is individual, not regional. I saw more racism when I lived in Delaware than I do down here.""
you could have asked why I put deep south. It has nothing at all to do with anything you said. I don't like the deep south because it becomes a hot , dull boring place. I have been there and am glad to get out of there. Also I wouldn't consider TN the deep south. Most all the stuff you said is things that people will say about anyplace. Sometimes it's true for places. I know people with dirt floors, and they don't live in the deep south. Reacting like you did, isn't helping anything for people's impressions of the south.
""Thom Greco, an astute businessman from the crumbling town of Wilkes-Barre is..."
Man why is it when we have a story from one of our not so glorious Pa cities it has to be brought up like this. Any other city and it wouldn't be mentioned. I read that and just bowed my head. Growing up for me Wilkes-barre was the big city, drive north on route 6 for an hour and you will understand. Wilkes-barre ins't that bad.
I would personaly prefer to live there then anywhere in NJ, Philly, deap south, or LA cali.
although I understand what to many of you this means and your general complaint/fear. Do relize bitching about this does make you look like a petaphile (sp?). I think people should be clear if they are complaining about people getting blocked from sites or complaining you can't get kiddy porn. If your in the later I think you should have life blocked from you, not just the kiddy porn
"" Sweet! Nothing inspires confidence in your homemade spacecraft like listing the garage-sale parts it was built from. I'm betting he's got a few toilet paper tubes in there somewhere too, most likely as part of the exhaust system.""
true, but hey it's what he wants to do. Some people are born to be a Darwin award winner, others work at it real hard. I think he is the latter. The question is who will get first post submitting this one to the awards people.
Yes you can get old ones pretty cheap. But as the poster I responded to was going towards new, so I responded as such. Your right about the wiring and toolling, mills and collets and such are the reall hidden cost. And yes a CNC crash is ugly. Thats why untill the program has been tested a Machiniest stands there and watchs.
I do know G code, I had to learn it. It's not the hardest thing in the world, but it's not the funnest thing either. it's like playing 3D logo. But making software to take a 3D cad file into G code is not so fun.
And sorry but there are no free CAD programs out there that are worth a damn.
"There might be 3 or 4 ways to do the same thing, but only one of those will be the right way to do it."
And I would like to see how many people think there way is the right way. In engineering you go to the code books and standards manuals and look up the correct specs for something. Or you design it on the accepted practice. There is little leway in these things.
The odds of you getting everyone to agree one one way to do something are very slim. Look at how many languages are out there, look at how many formates there are. All probably think they are the superior and right one.
The big problem you face is your working on something that workds in an environment created by man. There for it changes and can be all sorts of things. Normal engineering works in the environment of the universe. We are fixed in how we do things by phyisics and materials and such. This clearly defines how we can do things. Inside a computer the enironment can change from one to the next. What governs how one does something is changing. So to set a standard is going to be really freaking hard.
I wasn't talking about making PCB's. The person was talking about CNC's and didn't refer to as just for PCBs. For the purpose of just PCB's one could probably just by a router carving table. They work much the same as these types of machines.
""The problem is cost. It's curious that a country that is inventive as ours doesn't have some type of affordable CNC(computer numeric computation) milling machine.""
You underestimate what it take to make a good mill. A none computer controlled Bridgeport Vertical Mill will set you back 16 grand depending on how you option it. There are not a highvolume thing. It takes massive peices of perfectly machined metal to do this. Theres a lot to it. You can't just cheapen one up without it becomeing well cheap.
Adding Computer Numeric Control is not so easy. Though i'm sure if someone wanted to do it it would not be impossible. But there is a heck of a lot to G code (what runs CNC's). You'll be working the bugs out for a while. And then you still need a CAD program to pop out G code, thats a few grand there at the cheapest level. Granted if you want to spend a lot of time you can code it by hand. Many machinist do much of the G code by hand, but they do that everyday.
There are reasons CNC's aren't cheap, Mainly the fact everything about them is expensive. If you ever get to see a real high end CNC mill or lathe going you will understand why the cost $100K to a million bucks. Watching one at work will blow your mind. Especialy if you stick your head in it.
Slashdot Mirror
" Informative?!
Freebsd does SMP quit well. They have/are redoing the whole SMP system.
If it works quite well, why does it need to be entirely redone?
When finished Freebsd will have and extremely good SMP, if not the best.
So advertise when it's finished."
They had one system, they decided they could do better, so they made a whole new one. Makes perfect sence. You can always improve something, (except coca cola). At some point you relize somethings need to be redone even if the current setup works well. Some times there is differant ways of doing something well. They had one, now switching to another that's even better.
Far as finished and such, as others pointed out it's very close. It works, people need to test it.
"Can't quite agree with that. With USB, you can hot-swap keyboards and mouse. This is rather important for servers and notebooks. You can even have multiple keyboards/mice plugged-in simultaneously.
:( . Getting rid of PS/2 ports just means one less chip on the board. but no free'd up space. It basicly just has no big reason to go, just the same as it has no big reason to stay. it's not like a parallel port which takes tons of space and has been pretty much dead for 2 years. serial ports are still nice cause lots of people have devices that use them, and why get a serial to usb converter when you can have it on your board
Mayb be nothing you need, but you can't say there's nothing to gain. For the record, I dislike USB as much as anybody, but it's the only replacement for PS/2 available, so we're stuck with it (for slow, small, cheap devices at least)."
I have no problems with USB. I like it quit nice. But it wasn't till a bit over a year ago did I even own anything USB.
PS/2 is hotswappable most the time. But every now and then it doesn't work
Indeed Fortran is one I intend to learn, took C++ instead for school, don't know if I flubbed or not. But so much stuff in engineering is fortran. I know many people reviving old fortran programs from the 70's.
...... oh wait. That would beg the question, what is more important, figuring out how protiens fold, or figureing out how to fold a protein? And which would people rather do.
Matlab I have been learning through college, though I still don't use it as much as I should. Currently learning Simulink which is part of it. For any kind of dynamic model it is great.
I think your project is interesting and is in need of a webpage that can get slashdotted some day when you get something that works perfect. If you need more CPU you could come up with a distibuted program. Call it Folding@home
" Here in Oz we have ADSL services that offer you 256K down and 64K up. Meaning that it is ok if you are surfing, and leeching files, but if someone else wants to get data off you, it is going to be limited to your upbound capacity."
I really don't want to hear the details of connections made in Oz. I would hope you have an upload capacity. At least the files your transmitting are small.
" Dunno about the rest of you, but my "broadband" connection is only a few millimeters wide..."
Your falling to fluff. What you see is deciving, your broadband is a fracton of a millimeter wide. ISP's just want you to think the sheething on that cat 5 is giving you a faster connection.
WTF, that was odd, windows pasted the wrong thing. Ignore the first 3 paragraphs. I don't know how that happened. I was responding to the lots of ram and number of models part.
I'm am so confused by how that happened
"At anyrate For what I was doing I was best by myself. I've very much a stare at it and make it in my head kinda person. I'm not trying to snub people, I just can design things with more then just my brain. And I don't think people like standing around till I say cut this or drill this.
Thats not to say I don't need help at times. But it's just the way I work. The only human I can ever co design with is my father, we share the same brain. We come up with the same ideas at the same time.
Last night you would have looked at me staring at a truck for a few hours and making a few cuts. I just don't know what to tell people. Thats why I suck at groups."
Yeah, I know thats the problem with my way. But hey a Opteron or Athlon 64 might help you there.
Would something like matlab work better for this over mathematica? I've never used mathematica so I can't say much for it. In some ways I think having something that takes more power and reasorces avalible is a good thing. Gives reason for bigger faster computers. Most everyone would like a dual athlon or quad xeon, but just have no use for it. Maybe when games implement 100% real time and full throughout correct physics, material properties, and thermodynamics we all will.
Does your program use some forward thinking methods to eliminate possibilities, cause it knows a certain fold now will make a later feature impossible? Also for my idea of a method I can so hear my fluids profs. yelling at me "buckingham pi theorem!" to eliminate massive numbers of models. Don't know how well it could apply to your model though, I'm sure it could in some ways. It basicly alows for the elimination of test by dimentionless analysis. instead of 10000 test because of many variables you only need to do 10.
This sounds like a very neat project. A differant way to approach it could be to have the thing to a all combinations of folding. That is give it instructions like, size of paper, and number of folds and have it produce as many combinations as it can, then give it what you want and it compairs to it's database of finished shapes. The data base could break down the results to groups of pattersn to shorten searchs. This of course would take massive computing.
example could be tell it, 8 by 8 paper and 1 fold, and it tries every shape it can come up with. that results in unique shape. Have a limit to variation though. Also have variables like how many levels of folds like max folds on top of folds.
This would be easier i think to design then trying to get it to produce what you want. Instead it checks it's ever growing inventory. But like I said, the power needed to produce all of them is way more do to near repeats and the 99.99999999% rate of garbage results.
Be very nice to see how you make out with this. I think if I ever get going on some of the ones I want to do the same problems will face me.
to bad computers didn't understand commands like " I want a thing that makes a widget that looks like so and is yea big, and has a little do jig coming of the thinger thats under the other thing"
"I can't wait for legacy free machines to become mainstream, firewire and USB is all most systems need for externam connectors anyway, besides video I/O that is. Thats probally why I'm looking at getting a mac next computer."
Well by it's very nature the world of non macs can't just ditch the old stuff, because it's still out there and it wants to connect to new stuff. People have a lot of hard ware that needs old connectors. And things like PS/2 ports, well there is not reason to get rid of them, they work great, take no more space then USB, and are going to be used for a mouse and keyboard as a PS/2 or USB, so you gain nothing by making them USB.
Apple can toss old tech because people arn't expanding their machines much, and they buy a new mac to get their upgrades. It's not that apple is smarter that they do away with the old. It's just they can get away with it.
Option 2)
steps 1 through 37 involve walking through a lot of classrooms.
38) buy bolt cutters, or small torch
39) wait for right moment
40)run
41a) hook up to computer
41b) make one phone call
42b) tell self bail money is better spent on monitors.
"Freebsd 5.0 rocks! The only downside is that my Microsoft USB keyboard does not work with FreeBSD 5 on certain motherboards. I think its a bug and I hope its fixed soon."
might be the chipset. My old IBM would run beos fine, just had no keyboard support, they keyboard was fine, it was something on the board. I don't think there are many keyboard chipsets in the world, or whatever the computer uses for it. But i found a non standard one.
also you just gave me another reminder why I have no intent on buying a USB keyboard anytime. Heck I have a usb mouse and it's hooked into the PS/2 jack.
"trying to get a way to derive origami fold lines from a 3d model,"
:)
Are you saying your trying to be able to say feed it in the specs of a coke can and it pops out the instructions on how to fold one? Sounds very neat. Also sounds like cheating. The guy who came up with the swan didn't have a 4 way Xeon
Also if that is what it is, have you ever tried to get it to do a slinky, or a Sphere?
yes all said mention items are on my desk now, to late for creative brain.
" Mathematica stuff. A bit of everything, my attention wanders. Statistical analysis of cellular automata, parafoil design (low speed dynamics), trying to get a way to derive origami fold lines from a 3d model, path tracing... just stuff."
:)
haha, your mind sounds like mine. Once I graduate I intend to get working on various models (engine modeling mostly) and such that I dream up but have no time for. My dream model is to give a computer a few basic wants for an engine and it spits out the solution, the full solution. That could take all the supercomputers on earth to work through everyone of the few thousand variables with in the millions of values for each. I'm sure AMD will have a chip for it in a few years
I wish freeBSD had MOSIX, make a nice cluster. Though I hear there is similar things avalible or in the works.
Freebsd does SMP quit well. They have/are redoing the whole SMP system. It was slated for 5.0 but i don't know if it did or did not make it in. When finished Freebsd will have and extremely good SMP, if not the best.
So what are you crunching with that thing?
Yeah but theres also a good chance it's not just your CPU involved with this. Graphics card could come into play as well, or even the mobo. Your using a 200 buck PC, can't expect to much. if you look at mini-itx forums what i said is correct. Also many don't recoment anything under 1ghz for playback such as you were doing. I know my 500 celeron never played dvd's or divX very well either.
"" "I'm personally going with RCA from now on for home electronics..."
You realise, I hope, that RCA doesn't own RCA anymore. Consumer electronics that say RCA or GE are really from the French company Thomson, although there's no telling from one model to the next who they actually get to do the manufacturing, but you can be pretty sure that they're Japanese, Chinese, or Korean.""
Yup Thomson owns them. RCA, GE, Sylvania, and a few others are all the same. They are almost a GM of home electronics. Stick a differnt "grill" on the same thing and sell it as it's respective brand. I would very much stay away from RCA (though some RCA stuff is pretty good) and if it's a GE don't get near it. I think they make the differance in brands by which brand gets the better stuff, RCA gets the better for sure.
I think one thing that is missed when it comes to home electronics and brands and such is most people don't care. They can't tell the differance between high end and low, and that's fine. If they can't tell, it doesn't really matter to them. Also most home electronics arn't worth spending good money on. In a few years you'll want something else with the new features, or replace the few year old device that is out of style. TV's and component stereo's are about the only thing that last a while. Most everything else is desposable. Whether its a can opener (I have no idea why electric can openers exist) or a computer, people buy stuff for the moment. If it breaks two years later oh well.
In the case of printers, I don't think they have gotten much cheaper. Even if they have, the quality of the print has gone way up. The typical printer is picked up for 100 bucks. When it needs ink the two cartiges will cost you 60-80 bucks. You might by a new ink cartrige set for it once but by the second time you will just get a new one. You can get a lexmark new for less then the ink of your old. I was tempted to get a new one everytime i ran out of ink. But i could deal with the environmental issue of tossing a printer every 3 months.
One thing i can say about what people by in printers is this. I buy HP's, I had a lexmark an d it was crap but i had it for 3 years even still. I finaly ditched it for a HP that was a model going out, 920c. It was 99 bucks and looked spiffy and had a nice flip up paper tray that made it take very little space. The model replacing it looks like crap and took more space. I am in no hurry to upgrade. My reason behind my printer has little to do with the printer and more about looks and a simple (though great) feature. People will go into the store and walk through fast and if the printers look like ass, they will just get a new ink cartridge and look again next time. I wonder if HP made their printers look like ass to sell more ink cartridges.
Also the price of printers blow my mind. The fact a inkjet even works amazes me.
"" yeah, but once you factor in that C3 1ghz is about the same speed as a PII in the 300Mhz range or so, it's not so great for speed. It is low power though.""
a 1ghz C3 would be about equal to a 750 PII. The accepted approximation is 3/4 of a PIII.
"" Completely off-topic I know, but I wish a few people would actually check out the "Deep South" before putting it down. And no, watching "Deliverence" and "The Dukes of Hazzard" doesn't count. Speaking as a geek who lives in the Nashville TN area, let me give you a few facts -
We actually have floors here, not dirt and hay.
We wear shoes!
Indoor plumbing, even!
There are radio stations that do not play country. Really. There are some of us here who have never set foot in the "Grand Ole Opry."
Oh, and before you start talking politics and race, you *really* need to catch up. A good friend of mine has told me that she experienced more racism living in the Northwest (Oregon, Washington) than she has ever experienced down here in the south (and she lives in Alabama, no less). Racism is individual, not regional. I saw more racism when I lived in Delaware than I do down here.""
you could have asked why I put deep south. It has nothing at all to do with anything you said. I don't like the deep south because it becomes a hot , dull boring place. I have been there and am glad to get out of there. Also I wouldn't consider TN the deep south. Most all the stuff you said is things that people will say about anyplace. Sometimes it's true for places. I know people with dirt floors, and they don't live in the deep south. Reacting like you did, isn't helping anything for people's impressions of the south.
""Thom Greco, an astute businessman from the crumbling town of Wilkes-Barre is..."
Man why is it when we have a story from one of our not so glorious Pa cities it has to be brought up like this. Any other city and it wouldn't be mentioned. I read that and just bowed my head. Growing up for me Wilkes-barre was the big city, drive north on route 6 for an hour and you will understand. Wilkes-barre ins't that bad.
I would personaly prefer to live there then anywhere in NJ, Philly, deap south, or LA cali.
"" /me marks one more state to not move to.""
although I understand what to many of you this means and your general complaint/fear. Do relize bitching about this does make you look like a petaphile (sp?). I think people should be clear if they are complaining about people getting blocked from sites or complaining you can't get kiddy porn. If your in the later I think you should have life blocked from you, not just the kiddy porn
"" Sweet! Nothing inspires confidence in your homemade spacecraft like listing the garage-sale parts it was built from. I'm betting he's got a few toilet paper tubes in there somewhere too, most likely as part of the exhaust system.""
true, but hey it's what he wants to do. Some people are born to be a Darwin award winner, others work at it real hard. I think he is the latter. The question is who will get first post submitting this one to the awards people.
Yes you can get old ones pretty cheap. But as the poster I responded to was going towards new, so I responded as such. Your right about the wiring and toolling, mills and collets and such are the reall hidden cost. And yes a CNC crash is ugly. Thats why untill the program has been tested a Machiniest stands there and watchs.
I do know G code, I had to learn it. It's not the hardest thing in the world, but it's not the funnest thing either. it's like playing 3D logo. But making software to take a 3D cad file into G code is not so fun.
And sorry but there are no free CAD programs out there that are worth a damn.
"There might be 3 or 4 ways to do the same thing, but only one of those will be the right way to do it."
And I would like to see how many people think there way is the right way. In engineering you go to the code books and standards manuals and look up the correct specs for something. Or you design it on the accepted practice. There is little leway in these things.
The odds of you getting everyone to agree one one way to do something are very slim. Look at how many languages are out there, look at how many formates there are. All probably think they are the superior and right one.
The big problem you face is your working on something that workds in an environment created by man. There for it changes and can be all sorts of things. Normal engineering works in the environment of the universe. We are fixed in how we do things by phyisics and materials and such. This clearly defines how we can do things. Inside a computer the enironment can change from one to the next. What governs how one does something is changing. So to set a standard is going to be really freaking hard.
I wasn't talking about making PCB's. The person was talking about CNC's and didn't refer to as just for PCBs. For the purpose of just PCB's one could probably just by a router carving table. They work much the same as these types of machines.
""The problem is cost. It's curious that a country that is inventive as ours doesn't have some type of affordable CNC(computer numeric computation) milling machine.""
You underestimate what it take to make a good mill. A none computer controlled Bridgeport Vertical Mill will set you back 16 grand depending on how you option it. There are not a highvolume thing. It takes massive peices of perfectly machined metal to do this. Theres a lot to it. You can't just cheapen one up without it becomeing well cheap.
Adding Computer Numeric Control is not so easy. Though i'm sure if someone wanted to do it it would not be impossible. But there is a heck of a lot to G code (what runs CNC's). You'll be working the bugs out for a while. And then you still need a CAD program to pop out G code, thats a few grand there at the cheapest level. Granted if you want to spend a lot of time you can code it by hand. Many machinist do much of the G code by hand, but they do that everyday.
There are reasons CNC's aren't cheap, Mainly the fact everything about them is expensive. If you ever get to see a real high end CNC mill or lathe going you will understand why the cost $100K to a million bucks. Watching one at work will blow your mind. Especialy if you stick your head in it.