Decades ago I worked during the summer for the water department. One of our jobs was to find and mark water lines. We actually did use divining rods. No stick with a fork, though. Ours were two pieces of wire, each bent to form an 'L'. You loosely hold the shorter side, keeping the longer sides parallel to the ground and initially to each other. As you pass over the water main the wires cross. It worked quite reliably as long as the water main wasn't too deep. I always assumed it had something to do with magnetism.
I know someone who would pay quite handsomely for your services. As long as you can do this reliably, that is.
The problem isn't the Raspberry Pi, it's the cost of getting it to you, including taxes and shipping. I don't see how the BeagleBone could be any different, unless they somehow manufacture the board in South Africa (doubtful).
For comparison, the Brazilian tariffs bring the price of a Raspberry Pi to about $85... plus shipping and accessories.
It's a $30 activation fee for those already on iProvo. My bet is that new customers pay a $300 install fee for the free service, just like elsewhere, but no news on that yet.
A toy which consists of marvelling at the strength of attraction between magnets has a little educative value. But it's not in the same league as a bicycle.
I agree that it's not the same league as a bicycle. However, playing with magnets is far more beneficial than you might think.
For example, it develops fine motor skills. These are small, slippery spheres that react in sometimes surprising ways. Putting them together in intricate ways takes some skill.
There's also some science and math lessons to be learned. The variety of geometric shapes that can be made is quite astounding. The process of construction often invokes problem solving skills, as well.
Some people go a different route, taking a more artistic path. Developing artistic skills with a non-traditional medium can be considered quite educational.
Sure, there's less dangerous toys that can teach similar things. There's also other ways to deal with trash than trash bags. There's also other ways to refine gross motor skills, build character, and teach road safety than a bicycle. That doesn't mean a blanket ban* is appropriate.
Play with a set sometime, and you'll see how educational they really can be, even for an adult!
--
* Which raises the question, how many injuries do blankets cause?
Neoballs (the colored version of Zen Magnets) are sold individually to get around the CPSC's rule on "collections" of high power magnets.
Can I buy more than one?
Yes! Absolutely! If you haven’t heard, the CPSC has decided that an arbitrary quantity and shape of magnets is defective, and should be harder to purchase than ammunition online. Specifically, a quantity that can be considered an “aggregate” or “collection” of magnets shaped like spheres. To comply with the CPSC, we are now selling Neoballs individually. The CPSC’s attempt to ban magnets is bad, and they should feel bad. Go to SaveMagnets.com to learn more and add your voice.
Speaking as someone with EE and Computer Engineering degrees, and who currently works as a Software Engineer... I'd never let any EE anywhere near my code. Not unless I saw some evidence that they can think in terms of software instead of hardware.
I'm not sure what it is yet, but in my experience most don't have the mindset for software. Yes, they usually had to do some programming for their degree, but experience is minimal. As one colleague once pointed out, most EE's writing software use the "Monte Carlo" method of debugging -- if something doesn't work, randomly change one factor in the code and try again, hoping that solved the problem. You'd think they'd know better (that's not how you debug a circuit, for example), but it's a matter of mindset and experience more than anything.
This will work as long as the serial number isn't sequential (which makes brute-forcing much easier) and steps have been taken to prevent the device from publishing its serial number to anybody who happens to ask.
The conductor must adjust to having a blind singer in the choir, that much is clear. Most conductors rely on subtle body language to communicate what they want, and there's almost no way even a friend can give them everything.
What you're referring to is called the "preparatory beat" -- and it cannot be so subtle if it needs to be communicated to the blind. In fact, a blind person would probably even need an extra cue to know that the preparatory beat is coming, as that's actually the cue to breathe so they're ready for the first note. Even with a perfect technological solution, a friend would be necessary to provide the information a conductor doesn't communicate via the baton.
It's hard enough to synchronize sighted singers when varying the tempo like that. The delays and errors introduced by following a friend would make it near impossible.
To put some numbers on it, human reaction time is on the order of 150-300 ms. To account for this, the conductor actually directs the ictus a bit before the actual beat (especially when the music is more expressive). But with the helping friend, now we introduce an additional level of reaction time, which the friend cannot account for in the general case. If the tempo is at 60 beats per minute, a quarter second reaction time introduces a 25% phase difference between the blind singer and the rest of the choir. If the tempo is constant, the friend can anticipate and account for this, and it's only a problem for the first few beats at most. But introduce some rubato in there, and things get complicated quickly.
But, with enough rehearsal, I might be proved wrong anyway. As long as the conductor is somewhat consistent with the musical expression, the friend will naturally anticipate the beats, as will the sightless singer, and everything might be OK.
As a musician and an engineer, this was my thought exactly. Let me elaborate on my thoughts.
The key is to pick up on the "ictus" of the baton (basically, the sharp pulse when it changes direction). This shouldn't be too hard with an IMU. You can probably also pick up on the downbeat vs. upbeat vs. the rest from the direction of motion.
The problem goes beyond just tempo and preparatory beats, however. The job of the conductor is to direct the entire artistic expression of the music, not just synchronize the performers. Dynamics (volume, for the lay person), for example. Quiet music is directed with a pattern that's drawn into the body while loud music is directed with large motions. This can also be detected with the same IMU, with some work.
A harder problem is detecting how "smooth" the pattern is, which roughly translates to the overall emotional tone of the music (think lullaby -- smooth movements -- vs energetic, exciting music -- sharp movements). This would take some experimentation to make work properly.
Fermatas (holding a note) should also be possible to detect (basically, continuous motion without the ictus). Cut-offs might be a bit harder (but detecting rotation might be enough).
A rumble motor might not cut it, if you want to communicate all of this. Intensity and duration of the vibration can communicate quite a bit, so maybe it's enough for the basic features.
This would have to be done one feature at a time, of course, but those are the basics I'd want if I couldn't see the conductor. Of course, I haven't said anything about the conductor's other hand, which introduces other issues. And the rest of the conductor's body language, which can be very important as well.
In the end, it's not going to be possible for an electronic system to capture the entirety of the information the conductor would like to convey. And the conductors would have to change their style to communicate what they want over this system. It would probably take some experimentation between the conductor and performers to figure things out.
The problem is the question. "Can you hear the difference?" can never be answered, exactly for the reasons you suggest. "Can you hear the difference under normal listening conditions?" is a much better question.
I can already answer that question, too! The answer is: "Maybe, but only if you really try." Throw in a bit of poor acoustics and other real-world situations, and the 5% difference is lost.
Some of it agrees with you, some of it doesn't. Let me summarize some key highlights.
16 bits encodes more than the entire range of the human ear. In practice, you can get 120 dB of range, "greater than the difference between a mosquito somewhere in the same room and a jackhammer a foot away.... or the difference between a deserted 'soundproof' room and a sound loud enough to cause hearing damage in seconds." A 24-bit (or even 32-bit float, for that matter) signal path isn't strictly necessary, but reduces mistakes in recording and processing: "The primary reason to use 24 bits when recording is to prevent mistakes; rather than being careful to center 16 bit recording-- risking clipping if you guess too high and adding noise if you guess too low-- 24 bits allows an operator to set an approximate level and not worry too much about it."
So, a perfect 16-bit signal path will technically be just fine, but 24 works better in practice. For final playback, however, using more than 16 bits is generally a waste.
Now, on to 44.1 vs. 96 kHz sample rate. Oversampling at 96 kHz used to have a purpose back in the days of analog -- more wiggle room for filters and whatnot. But now, digital processing has all but eliminated the benefits of a 96 kHz sample rate.
And then you get into the drawbacks of oversampling. If there's any weak link in the path from recording to headphones, recording ultrasonic frequencies (the ones over 20 kHz, basically) will only produce distortions. So, if you have a 96 kHz recording, you'd better have "headphones that can accurately reproduce frequencies above 20 kHz" and whatnot, otherwise you're going to get distortion.
But, here's the kicker: if the original recorder were done at 48 kHz instead, the exact same sound quality can be produced at the back end, without requiring special playback hardware to work around the distortion produced by unnecessarily recording sounds that can't be heard anyway. With modern digital processing, that is.
Here's the lesson: record at 48 kHz, 24 bit, encode for playback at 48 kHz, 16 bit. Higher sampling rates will only produce distortions unless everybody has great hardware (unlikely) and doesn't improve the sound anyway. The extra bits per sample are unnecessary for playback.
1) Certain items are taxed at different rates. Groceries vs. junk food vs. everything else, for example. The merchant would have to provide details of the transaction to the state (I can't see that going down well with the./ crowd) on what was purchased. The same liability issues would have to be resolved.
2) Sales tax exemption mechanisms need to be honored.
One common argument for internet sales tax is to level the playing field with local, brick-and-mortar stores. Don't let the pendulum swing too far the other way, making it an extra burden on internet sales that doesn't otherwise apply locally.
Kohls has a solution that seems to work, but only somewhat.
After telling them where I live to place an order, they try to look up the sales tax by my zip code. This fails because my zip code spans five different sales tax rates -- two counties, inside or outside city limits, etc. So, they present a drop-down list for me to tell them which area I fall under.
And, of course, I don't think they have all the right options -- there's other special tax districts that aren't accounted for by their list.
So, of course I'm going to figure out which one has the lowest tax rate and tell them I live there. It's almost a 5% difference!
When I put in new flooring, the local store had to loop up my specific address in a huge book to figure out my tax rate. You're exactly right that they have to find the address on a map.
The smart money is on a complementary device, I think. No need to sacrifice tablet and smartphone sales.
I'm hoping for a device that works well with any smartphone (that's a pipe dream, of course -- until someone roots the thing it'll probably only work with Samsung or Apple devices) to provide the types of things you suggested, but is not dependent on a connection for everything.
For example, give it enough memory to download a playlist, so I can use it as my MP3 player while working out.
Give it enough sensors and processing power to run some interesting apps, without a phone connection.
The people of Lusiânia are colonizers. I like to think that they would look on the original Portuguese colonizers as kindred spirits, of sorts. Going back to the European roots almost makes sense to me.
I'm fully educated on the LDS mission life, thank you. And I stand by my point entirely. (Of course, rereading my post, I understand the miscommunication. My fault.)
Most returned missionaries speak their new language very well. The problem is that their vocabulary tends to be limited to religious topics (after all, that's what they spend 90% of their time talking about). While there, they are limited to a small geographic area (usually spending time in only a handful cities and towns). Then they come home and have limited opportunities to practice their new language, so things languish a bit. (Of course, some learn and keep up their language better than others, and some return still barely speaking anything.)
I don't say this to downplay the language skills of LDS missionaries, only to say that the mistakes that Card made are completely understandable. He was back from his mission for 14 years before he wrote Speaker, and was probably out of practice.
It's called "suspension of disbelief." The problem is that a native Portuguese speaker will be bothered to the point that the changes become implausible. Even to someone only conversant in Portuguese (like myself), things start to become odd and distracting.
I remind myself that languages and culture change after 3000 years, which helps. But if Card were trying to show how the language might change, he sure didn't do a very good job of it -- instead it just comes off as someone who knows just enough to get the idea across, but didn't bother running the dialogue past a native speaker. Compare to Firefly, which sprinkled in Mandarin -- a bit better and more believable, from what I hear, albeit still far from perfect.
Still... how many other books even try to insert Portuguese?
Slashdot Mirror
$30 for existing iProvo customers and $300 for new customers, if I understand right. Not a bad deal either way.
Decades ago I worked during the summer for the water department. One of our jobs was to find and mark water lines. We actually did use divining rods. No stick with a fork, though. Ours were two pieces of wire, each bent to form an 'L'. You loosely hold the shorter side, keeping the longer sides parallel to the ground and initially to each other. As you pass over the water main the wires cross. It worked quite reliably as long as the water main wasn't too deep. I always assumed it had something to do with magnetism.
I know someone who would pay quite handsomely for your services. As long as you can do this reliably, that is.
The problem isn't the Raspberry Pi, it's the cost of getting it to you, including taxes and shipping. I don't see how the BeagleBone could be any different, unless they somehow manufacture the board in South Africa (doubtful).
For comparison, the Brazilian tariffs bring the price of a Raspberry Pi to about $85 ... plus shipping and accessories.
It's a $30 activation fee for those already on iProvo. My bet is that new customers pay a $300 install fee for the free service, just like elsewhere, but no news on that yet.
A toy which consists of marvelling at the strength of attraction between magnets has a little educative value. But it's not in the same league as a bicycle.
I agree that it's not the same league as a bicycle. However, playing with magnets is far more beneficial than you might think.
For example, it develops fine motor skills. These are small, slippery spheres that react in sometimes surprising ways. Putting them together in intricate ways takes some skill.
There's also some science and math lessons to be learned. The variety of geometric shapes that can be made is quite astounding. The process of construction often invokes problem solving skills, as well.
Some people go a different route, taking a more artistic path. Developing artistic skills with a non-traditional medium can be considered quite educational.
Sure, there's less dangerous toys that can teach similar things. There's also other ways to deal with trash than trash bags. There's also other ways to refine gross motor skills, build character, and teach road safety than a bicycle. That doesn't mean a blanket ban* is appropriate.
Play with a set sometime, and you'll see how educational they really can be, even for an adult!
--
* Which raises the question, how many injuries do blankets cause?
Neoballs (the colored version of Zen Magnets) are sold individually to get around the CPSC's rule on "collections" of high power magnets.
Can I buy more than one?
Yes! Absolutely! If you haven’t heard, the CPSC has decided that an arbitrary quantity and shape of magnets is defective, and should be harder to purchase than ammunition online. Specifically, a quantity that can be considered an “aggregate” or “collection” of magnets shaped like spheres. To comply with the CPSC, we are now selling Neoballs individually. The CPSC’s attempt to ban magnets is bad, and they should feel bad. Go to SaveMagnets.com to learn more and add your voice.
Speaking as someone with EE and Computer Engineering degrees, and who currently works as a Software Engineer ... I'd never let any EE anywhere near my code. Not unless I saw some evidence that they can think in terms of software instead of hardware.
I'm not sure what it is yet, but in my experience most don't have the mindset for software. Yes, they usually had to do some programming for their degree, but experience is minimal. As one colleague once pointed out, most EE's writing software use the "Monte Carlo" method of debugging -- if something doesn't work, randomly change one factor in the code and try again, hoping that solved the problem. You'd think they'd know better (that's not how you debug a circuit, for example), but it's a matter of mindset and experience more than anything.
This will work as long as the serial number isn't sequential (which makes brute-forcing much easier) and steps have been taken to prevent the device from publishing its serial number to anybody who happens to ask.
The serial number would work, as long as the device never publishes it to the outside world.
The conductor must adjust to having a blind singer in the choir, that much is clear. Most conductors rely on subtle body language to communicate what they want, and there's almost no way even a friend can give them everything.
What you're referring to is called the "preparatory beat" -- and it cannot be so subtle if it needs to be communicated to the blind. In fact, a blind person would probably even need an extra cue to know that the preparatory beat is coming, as that's actually the cue to breathe so they're ready for the first note. Even with a perfect technological solution, a friend would be necessary to provide the information a conductor doesn't communicate via the baton.
Let me introduce you to my friend Tempo Rubato.
It's hard enough to synchronize sighted singers when varying the tempo like that. The delays and errors introduced by following a friend would make it near impossible.
To put some numbers on it, human reaction time is on the order of 150-300 ms. To account for this, the conductor actually directs the ictus a bit before the actual beat (especially when the music is more expressive). But with the helping friend, now we introduce an additional level of reaction time, which the friend cannot account for in the general case. If the tempo is at 60 beats per minute, a quarter second reaction time introduces a 25% phase difference between the blind singer and the rest of the choir. If the tempo is constant, the friend can anticipate and account for this, and it's only a problem for the first few beats at most. But introduce some rubato in there, and things get complicated quickly.
But, with enough rehearsal, I might be proved wrong anyway. As long as the conductor is somewhat consistent with the musical expression, the friend will naturally anticipate the beats, as will the sightless singer, and everything might be OK.
This sounds awesome! Link, please?
Comments here have gotten me thinking about making something like this, but maybe some of the work has been done before.
As a musician and an engineer, this was my thought exactly. Let me elaborate on my thoughts.
The key is to pick up on the "ictus" of the baton (basically, the sharp pulse when it changes direction). This shouldn't be too hard with an IMU. You can probably also pick up on the downbeat vs. upbeat vs. the rest from the direction of motion.
The problem goes beyond just tempo and preparatory beats, however. The job of the conductor is to direct the entire artistic expression of the music, not just synchronize the performers. Dynamics (volume, for the lay person), for example. Quiet music is directed with a pattern that's drawn into the body while loud music is directed with large motions. This can also be detected with the same IMU, with some work.
A harder problem is detecting how "smooth" the pattern is, which roughly translates to the overall emotional tone of the music (think lullaby -- smooth movements -- vs energetic, exciting music -- sharp movements). This would take some experimentation to make work properly.
Fermatas (holding a note) should also be possible to detect (basically, continuous motion without the ictus). Cut-offs might be a bit harder (but detecting rotation might be enough).
A rumble motor might not cut it, if you want to communicate all of this. Intensity and duration of the vibration can communicate quite a bit, so maybe it's enough for the basic features.
This would have to be done one feature at a time, of course, but those are the basics I'd want if I couldn't see the conductor. Of course, I haven't said anything about the conductor's other hand, which introduces other issues. And the rest of the conductor's body language, which can be very important as well.
In the end, it's not going to be possible for an electronic system to capture the entirety of the information the conductor would like to convey. And the conductors would have to change their style to communicate what they want over this system. It would probably take some experimentation between the conductor and performers to figure things out.
That's what she said???
Actually, IAAS (I am a statistician).
Thanks for the clarification. I was going to assume you were "Infrastructure as a Service" otherwise.
Just think of all the poor lost soles in these missing packages!
Zen Magnets are still available.
Less expensive than Buckyballs were, and the quality seems to be pretty decent.
The problem is the question. "Can you hear the difference?" can never be answered, exactly for the reasons you suggest. "Can you hear the difference under normal listening conditions?" is a much better question.
I can already answer that question, too! The answer is: "Maybe, but only if you really try." Throw in a bit of poor acoustics and other real-world situations, and the 5% difference is lost.
Everybody needs to read the following very carefully:
http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
Some of it agrees with you, some of it doesn't. Let me summarize some key highlights.
16 bits encodes more than the entire range of the human ear. In practice, you can get 120 dB of range, "greater than the difference between a mosquito somewhere in the same room and a jackhammer a foot away.... or the difference between a deserted 'soundproof' room and a sound loud enough to cause hearing damage in seconds." A 24-bit (or even 32-bit float, for that matter) signal path isn't strictly necessary, but reduces mistakes in recording and processing: "The primary reason to use 24 bits when recording is to prevent mistakes; rather than being careful to center 16 bit recording-- risking clipping if you guess too high and adding noise if you guess too low-- 24 bits allows an operator to set an approximate level and not worry too much about it."
So, a perfect 16-bit signal path will technically be just fine, but 24 works better in practice. For final playback, however, using more than 16 bits is generally a waste.
Now, on to 44.1 vs. 96 kHz sample rate. Oversampling at 96 kHz used to have a purpose back in the days of analog -- more wiggle room for filters and whatnot. But now, digital processing has all but eliminated the benefits of a 96 kHz sample rate.
And then you get into the drawbacks of oversampling. If there's any weak link in the path from recording to headphones, recording ultrasonic frequencies (the ones over 20 kHz, basically) will only produce distortions. So, if you have a 96 kHz recording, you'd better have "headphones that can accurately reproduce frequencies above 20 kHz" and whatnot, otherwise you're going to get distortion.
But, here's the kicker: if the original recorder were done at 48 kHz instead, the exact same sound quality can be produced at the back end, without requiring special playback hardware to work around the distortion produced by unnecessarily recording sounds that can't be heard anyway. With modern digital processing, that is.
Here's the lesson: record at 48 kHz, 24 bit, encode for playback at 48 kHz, 16 bit. Higher sampling rates will only produce distortions unless everybody has great hardware (unlikely) and doesn't improve the sound anyway. The extra bits per sample are unnecessary for playback.
A few complications that must be resolved:
1) Certain items are taxed at different rates. Groceries vs. junk food vs. everything else, for example. The merchant would have to provide details of the transaction to the state (I can't see that going down well with the ./ crowd) on what was purchased. The same liability issues would have to be resolved.
2) Sales tax exemption mechanisms need to be honored.
One common argument for internet sales tax is to level the playing field with local, brick-and-mortar stores. Don't let the pendulum swing too far the other way, making it an extra burden on internet sales that doesn't otherwise apply locally.
Kohls has a solution that seems to work, but only somewhat.
After telling them where I live to place an order, they try to look up the sales tax by my zip code. This fails because my zip code spans five different sales tax rates -- two counties, inside or outside city limits, etc. So, they present a drop-down list for me to tell them which area I fall under.
And, of course, I don't think they have all the right options -- there's other special tax districts that aren't accounted for by their list.
So, of course I'm going to figure out which one has the lowest tax rate and tell them I live there. It's almost a 5% difference!
When I put in new flooring, the local store had to loop up my specific address in a huge book to figure out my tax rate. You're exactly right that they have to find the address on a map.
The smart money is on a complementary device, I think. No need to sacrifice tablet and smartphone sales.
I'm hoping for a device that works well with any smartphone (that's a pipe dream, of course -- until someone roots the thing it'll probably only work with Samsung or Apple devices) to provide the types of things you suggested, but is not dependent on a connection for everything.
For example, give it enough memory to download a playlist, so I can use it as my MP3 player while working out.
Give it enough sensors and processing power to run some interesting apps, without a phone connection.
The people of Lusiânia are colonizers. I like to think that they would look on the original Portuguese colonizers as kindred spirits, of sorts. Going back to the European roots almost makes sense to me.
I'm fully educated on the LDS mission life, thank you. And I stand by my point entirely. (Of course, rereading my post, I understand the miscommunication. My fault.)
Most returned missionaries speak their new language very well. The problem is that their vocabulary tends to be limited to religious topics (after all, that's what they spend 90% of their time talking about). While there, they are limited to a small geographic area (usually spending time in only a handful cities and towns). Then they come home and have limited opportunities to practice their new language, so things languish a bit. (Of course, some learn and keep up their language better than others, and some return still barely speaking anything.)
I don't say this to downplay the language skills of LDS missionaries, only to say that the mistakes that Card made are completely understandable. He was back from his mission for 14 years before he wrote Speaker, and was probably out of practice.
It's called "suspension of disbelief." The problem is that a native Portuguese speaker will be bothered to the point that the changes become implausible. Even to someone only conversant in Portuguese (like myself), things start to become odd and distracting.
I remind myself that languages and culture change after 3000 years, which helps. But if Card were trying to show how the language might change, he sure didn't do a very good job of it -- instead it just comes off as someone who knows just enough to get the idea across, but didn't bother running the dialogue past a native speaker. Compare to Firefly, which sprinkled in Mandarin -- a bit better and more believable, from what I hear, albeit still far from perfect.
Still ... how many other books even try to insert Portuguese?