... because printing out the book would cost much more than the book itself.
A forum at the site for peer review would be nice. Then the issues of credit for work and contentious elements of the theory could be debated dynamically and publicly. Of course maybe it exists already. Can't get to the site at the moment.
So, if a... and has never seen us before is going to find it. Now _that's_ a good answer. OK, alien bug threat unlikely if they have different biochemistry.
But ever curious as I am: knowing flu's constraints, what is it that keeps it from being more successful and could we conceive of an organism that could overcome those constraints? What would it take to say, be a better influenza A (though it occurs to me just now that the answer to that might currently be classified;) Frankly, I don't think current biochem/biology can answer that but if you can steer me in the right direction it would be appreciated. Cheers.
Nice reply. But it still assumes that the mechanism is what we see with earth-based forms. What if it wasn't? Mental exercise 1: could we come up with a way that something different biochemically from us could survive, reproduce, and do us harm? Mental exercise 2: pick an existing pathogen and devise a way it _could_ become trans-species.
The point is, that sort of proactive questioning does not seem to be explored except maybe in physics and mathematics where it is a matter of course to toss out a postulate and fiddle with it till it breaks or doesn't. Biology and biochem by comparison are very reactive. They seem to progress in a cycle of "This is so!", "Oh wait here's an exception.", "Ah, now we get it.", "This is so!", etc. It's never, "You know, according to my theories we should find... living here."
Once upon a time it was believed that if it got hot enough, all the bacteria died too.
P.S. - It's only common if you consider it as a global phenomonon. is splitting hairs. If it's common enough to have an impact, it's common. Murder is almost always locally rare, but globally common.
a. The species jumping is a regular event. It is simply that sometimes the results are relatively benign. Lately however, that is not the case.
b. alien pathogen being able to attack our biochemistry are extremely low to non-existant only if we assume that the attack would be the same as those of Earth origin. As experience with the extremophile microbes indicates, we do not know what is possible or we wouldn't be continually surprised by where we find microbes. Yes, we can explain something after it is discovered but our grasp of biochemistry could only be said to be complete if we could predict.
c. a minor risk compared to the implications of the find! echoes the party line in the early years of the nuclear industry. Considering the preceding point, it is scientific arrogance in the extreme. Plus, how significant would the revelation of a common galactic ancestor be? The Creationists would yell, "Of course!". For the rest of us, neat but where's the value added?
Conclusion: we haven't got a clue what we will find and we are taking a huge risk. But that is human nature. The hope is that we will contaminate Mars and not the other way around.
OK. The government takes on its own software development but also uses some open source. Something goes wrong. Who's responsible? Now you may argue that current EULA's waive any accountability at the moment except that there is nonetheless an accountable party and the issue can be debated in court. In the case of oss who does the government take to task?
Even worse, what if a government agency develops some software which it releases. Will it be held responsible should there be a flaw which adversely affects other users? In this day and age there is no doubt that someone would try to sue esp. if it's a government agency. And let's face it, a government agency is fundamentally accountable to "the people" for its actions.
Lack of liability is already bad enough. Moving to oss would seem to exacerbate the problem. And should you doubt any of this, ask yourself, when you've bitched about a really thorny problem with some oss software how often have you had the response that "Hey, it's free. Don't like it then take a hike." That is not an option for a responsible agency with a critical need, nor is it a response they can make.
"If you talk to governments, they're actually thinking - why don't we write open source software as well.
"So it's not just cost-based, but also the concept of open source software. They just like the idea of saving the people money, but also giving back to the people what they created."
So now government will get in to the business of writing it's own code and releasing it to the public? Just think about that and reflect upon what projects have governments undertaken that you personally would hail as successful, efficient, and inexpensive.
Didn't we the public just spend a decade crying for how government should be more business-like e.g. outsourcing? But we should change that for things like the software that makes government "run"?
I sit down in front of a Windows box and immediately feel constrained. So much I just cannot do...
Funny, I feel the same way in Linux. Sure, I can recompile my kernel, change my themes, and experiment with modifying app source code... but can I upgrade software without hours of searching for missing libraries? Can I open a document written by the dominant word processor without a multitude of format errors (an important feature if you work in the real world at all)? Can I even not have to upgrade my OS every other month because that's the only way to get rid of the bugs in my current OS? The answer to all the above is NO. Sorry but Linux constrains me by forcing me to become a hacker/code-monkey.
Mod me down, but my computer is a tool not my way of life.
Here's what you see on the download page: a gzipped tarball and no instructions. There are no binaries on the download page. Open the tarball in Windows w/zip and the readme's aren't readable. No documentation on installation, etc.
Conclusion: it's a fake.
To OSS developers: if you don't have the time to dcoument your work, then it is irrelevant to a "community". Why? Because a work of science or engineering should be able to bear the scrutiny of at least the community of your peers. Obfuscate if you will but don't whine that the value of your work isn't recognized.
"Since coLinux uses the same binary format for user-space executables as native Linux, coLinux can load and run an existing unmodified Linux distribution concurrently with the host OS."
There are a littany of posts decrying the patent system every time an issue like this comes up. There are invariably dozens of posts saying some idea or other was ripped off from OSS work. Here's the deal, if it's important to you, protect it. Patents can be taken out by anyone. You want an idea to remain free? Then get the rights to it and make it so. Start a movement, raise the cash, and make it happen. Whining after the fact is a sorry excuse for inaction. Hate the patent system? Get in gear and organize a formal complaint.
Corollary to all this: if no change is taking place then noone else cares or sees a problem.
... I'm sitting in my basement office on-line and mostly working. I have a ceramic space heater running (Canada, eh) and my desk is next to the furnace room. The noise from both those appliances dwarfs that of the three computers in the room. I wish I could hear my computer!
Frankly, the quiet whoosh of a computer fan is kind of soothing. Just a gentle white noise to screen out the really distracting stuff coming from outside the house.
Anyways, let's say you get a 100% quiet PC. What do you do? Sit in the silence? As if! You play loud games, crank up the tunes, or worse, listen to the click and clatter of keyboard and mouse.
It's actually Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Clever bastard! Just kidding.
I worked with imagery analysts in the pre-digital age. You wanted to see a field of camouflaged T-64 tanks in your picture? No problem. Change your mind and want instead to see the Soviet fleet exiting harbour at battle stations? Heck, it could be that too! They'd just change the captions. It was a standing joke. They worked hard and honestly I'm sure, but only they really knew the difference.
First: Some following posts show the author didn't even do a rudimentary search of the archive let alone anything else. A place to start for example, "Where are all these zillions of states hiding in a black hole?" Mottola said in a recent article in New Scientist magazine. "It is quite literally incomprehensible." or The "unique and remarkable properties" of a gravastar "could explain several high-energy astrophysical phenomena that now are puzzling," says Marek Abramowicz, a black hole expert at Gothenburg University. Oh, and Mottola was a researcher at Los Alamos' Theoretical Division. RTFA, dude.
Second: Anyone involved with the scientific community in the least, should know that peer review is actually quite a contentious issue and by no means considered as accounting for "all fault-finding".
Third: The theory itself resolves some troubling issues with black hole theory. The latter has become so fashionable that even lay men speak of them without seeming to question some of the root concepts that stretch all but a seasoned physicist's imagination. A quote from a related article: Physicists have struggled for years to account for the huge entropy of black holes, and largely have failed. Unlike their black hole counterparts, Gravastars would have a very low entropy.
Finally: This linkis to the Los Alamos release... yes, it was released by a very presitigious research lab.
Before mp3's didn't people used to tape music from the FM radio? Crappy quality but good enough and then mp3's and all that happened. But, improved FM quality, might mean a return to people recording from radio. RIAA's job is easier because a royalty system is well established. Users are happier because the threat of legal pursuit is much, much more remote (never impossible). Seems win-win.
This seems to be an excellent point echoed (less succinctly) in some other posts. Some questions come to mind:
a) How much of an edge are we losing as we evolve software and hardware? Is bloat and inefficiency cancelling out CPU performance increase? Or are we making net gains?
Thought: We are making net gains, so the worry is really about efficiency. But we still seem to be inside the 80/20 criteria i.e. the extra effort to increase the efficiency of software is offset by the relatively small performance increase that can be had.
b) The remedy to pervasive DRA seems to be in OSS. Can we get to the point where OSS OS'es, wordprocessors, spreadsheets, and other office apps are "good enough" i.e. ubiquitous format and sufficient features to satisfy all but the most esoteric requirements?
Thought: The counter to the DRA worry is that at the speeds of most office suite software, any DRA effects will pass unoticed. There is no OSS software that seems to satisfy general user needs the way the commercial office suites and OS'es do. Even amongst the OSS savvy, the use of OSS for real work is still low (sysadmins,etc. being exception).
1) the unsprung weight is not so important a factor since subways (e.g. Montreal metro) run on smooth tracks;
2) the increased efficiency will mean less heat generation which becomes a problem in summer and necessitates air-conditioning (massively inefficient); and
3) decrease in the noise levels.
Note, a subway version would not have the power concerns that necessitate batteries and small diesels (although with hydrogen fuel cells...).
"During those days there was a measurable difference in the diurnal temprature variations due to lack of contrails."
The above statement, except the part in italics is possibly true. The "measurable difference" is only if you choose your margin of error to favour what you want to believe.
And that adjustment of data is what makes climate change and human involvement such bunk. Case in point: if we understand the atmospheric chemistry so very well as to make the dire predictions of our effect on it, why are we continually surprised by it(auroras at unexpected heights)?
It seems the height of presumption to believe that we humans, greatly outnumbered as we are by numerous other species, have anything but a local impact on this huge complex planet. Signs of our passage, like cockroach droppings, may be everywhere but it does not mean that we are having any effect in the grand scheme.
... is how researchers have propagated the disease. In fact, the transmission means is unknown in part because we don't yet know the agent (as explained here). So, as in so many things, that the wolves might get and propagate the disease is just wild-assed FUD.
... and nothing has been heard? Honestly, who in their right minds would have key communication for their project lie with the agency (NASA) that stands to be most embarassed by any Beagle success? You can bet China will not entrust anything important to NASA.
The one hope is that Jodrell picks up something... assuming they don't get jammed.
Flight wasn't a technology. The Wright brothers were addressing a dream. Humanity had wanted to fly since antiquity. New technologies over time merely addressed the dream until one was successful. Note too that flight was enabled by technology that wasn't cutting edge (levers, wire, canvas, internal combustion engine).
So if a technology is not a purpose and nothing is "cutting edge" without a context, then what are the dreams of today? We've been to the moon. We can travel the planet on a whim. We can eat what and when we want. We live to a ripe old age and can stave of suffering and needless death.(Caveat: when the preceding is economically advantageous.) So what does humanity want?
For example, nanotechnology seems cutting edge but the uses for it seemed to have followed rather than preceded its development. Besides being a neat thing to do, why exactly are we doing it? What is the vision?
Currently, humanity's dreams seem to revolve around the ideal entertainment device (the drive towards a holo-deck experience has been pushing the world of PC development). That seems a bit meagre compared to the dream of flying.
... what exactly is it that you are trying to mount. The advice in the posts so far speak about heat and power concerns as well as industry standard dimensions. Whoa! You said "home".
So let's say (old gear scenario) a hub/switch, old PC as server, cable modem, T5 cable (you said "clutter" so one assumes no wifi); typical to home needs. Negligible heat, negligible power. So what the heck do you need even a "small rack" for?
Think: a cabinet rack must necessarily have a larger footprint than the existing gear it encloses. A cabinet will have all the same wiring clutter leading in and out of it. So it's unclear what you hope to gain.
If you want to make things look nice, mount the gear out of sight (closet, furnace room (my own set up)) or stick it in a piece of furniture (as many of the posts here suggest). Total cost can be zero.
Industry went to racks primarily to make use of vertical space for the large number of units typical of an industrial set up. Clutter is addressed with trunking, bundling, and raised flooring.
... because by establishing the levy, they'd also be effectively saying that they are not going to pursue the RIAA "shock and awe suing" campaign. Look at it as if they'd be saying, "Download all you want. We believe we're being fairly compensated."
Now, the last hurdle of the conscience driven user is gone. You don't have to feel the least bit guilty about downloading because you are paying for it.
So be a good consumer. Get out there and get the best bang for your buck that you possibly can!!
Slashdot Mirror
... because printing out the book would cost much more than the book itself.
A forum at the site for peer review would be nice. Then the issues of credit for work and contentious elements of the theory could be debated dynamically and publicly. Of course maybe it exists already. Can't get to the site at the moment.
So, if a ... and has never seen us before is going to find it. Now _that's_ a good answer. OK, alien bug threat unlikely if they have different biochemistry.
;) Frankly, I don't think current biochem/biology can answer that but if you can steer me in the right direction it would be appreciated. Cheers.
But ever curious as I am: knowing flu's constraints, what is it that keeps it from being more successful and could we conceive of an organism that could overcome those constraints? What would it take to say, be a better influenza A (though it occurs to me just now that the answer to that might currently be classified
Nice reply. But it still assumes that the mechanism is what we see with earth-based forms. What if it wasn't? Mental exercise 1: could we come up with a way that something different biochemically from us could survive, reproduce, and do us harm? Mental exercise 2: pick an existing pathogen and devise a way it _could_ become trans-species.
... living here."
The point is, that sort of proactive questioning does not seem to be explored except maybe in physics and mathematics where it is a matter of course to toss out a postulate and fiddle with it till it breaks or doesn't. Biology and biochem by comparison are very reactive. They seem to progress in a cycle of "This is so!", "Oh wait here's an exception.", "Ah, now we get it.", "This is so!", etc. It's never, "You know, according to my theories we should find
Once upon a time it was believed that if it got hot enough, all the bacteria died too.
P.S. - It's only common if you consider it as a global phenomonon. is splitting hairs. If it's common enough to have an impact, it's common. Murder is almost always locally rare, but globally common.
a. The species jumping is a regular event. It is simply that sometimes the results are relatively benign. Lately however, that is not the case.
b. alien pathogen being able to attack our biochemistry are extremely low to non-existant only if we assume that the attack would be the same as those of Earth origin. As experience with the extremophile microbes indicates, we do not know what is possible or we wouldn't be continually surprised by where we find microbes. Yes, we can explain something after it is discovered but our grasp of biochemistry could only be said to be complete if we could predict.
c. a minor risk compared to the implications of the find! echoes the party line in the early years of the nuclear industry. Considering the preceding point, it is scientific arrogance in the extreme. Plus, how significant would the revelation of a common galactic ancestor be? The Creationists would yell, "Of course!". For the rest of us, neat but where's the value added?
Conclusion: we haven't got a clue what we will find and we are taking a huge risk. But that is human nature. The hope is that we will contaminate Mars and not the other way around.
Another extraplanetary analogue is Lake Vostok, a subglacial lake detected seismically 3.6 km below the Antarctic icecap.
Has the seismic detection already altered the environment? How will we know without further altering the environment?
This is the cost of exploration. Either we accept and mitigate as best we can. Or deny our inner spirit and lapse into over cautious passivity.
OK. The government takes on its own software development but also uses some open source. Something goes wrong. Who's responsible? Now you may argue that current EULA's waive any accountability at the moment except that there is nonetheless an accountable party and the issue can be debated in court. In the case of oss who does the government take to task?
Even worse, what if a government agency develops some software which it releases. Will it be held responsible should there be a flaw which adversely affects other users? In this day and age there is no doubt that someone would try to sue esp. if it's a government agency. And let's face it, a government agency is fundamentally accountable to "the people" for its actions.
Lack of liability is already bad enough. Moving to oss would seem to exacerbate the problem. And should you doubt any of this, ask yourself, when you've bitched about a really thorny problem with some oss software how often have you had the response that "Hey, it's free. Don't like it then take a hike." That is not an option for a responsible agency with a critical need, nor is it a response they can make.
"If you talk to governments, they're actually thinking - why don't we write open source software as well.
"So it's not just cost-based, but also the concept of open source software. They just like the idea of saving the people money, but also giving back to the people what they created."
So now government will get in to the business of writing it's own code and releasing it to the public? Just think about that and reflect upon what projects have governments undertaken that you personally would hail as successful, efficient, and inexpensive.
Didn't we the public just spend a decade crying for how government should be more business-like e.g. outsourcing? But we should change that for things like the software that makes government "run"?
I sit down in front of a Windows box and immediately feel constrained. So much I just cannot do...
... but can I upgrade software without hours of searching for missing libraries? Can I open a document written by the dominant word processor without a multitude of format errors (an important feature if you work in the real world at all)? Can I even not have to upgrade my OS every other month because that's the only way to get rid of the bugs in my current OS? The answer to all the above is NO. Sorry but Linux constrains me by forcing me to become a hacker/code-monkey.
Funny, I feel the same way in Linux. Sure, I can recompile my kernel, change my themes, and experiment with modifying app source code
Mod me down, but my computer is a tool not my way of life.
Here's what you see on the download page: a gzipped tarball and no instructions. There are no binaries on the download page. Open the tarball in Windows w/zip and the readme's aren't readable. No documentation on installation, etc.
Conclusion: it's a fake.
To OSS developers: if you don't have the time to dcoument your work, then it is irrelevant to a "community". Why? Because a work of science or engineering should be able to bear the scrutiny of at least the community of your peers. Obfuscate if you will but don't whine that the value of your work isn't recognized.
From the site:
"Since coLinux uses the same binary format for user-space executables as native Linux, coLinux can load and run an existing unmodified Linux distribution concurrently with the host OS."
... Windows will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
There are a littany of posts decrying the patent system every time an issue like this comes up. There are invariably dozens of posts saying some idea or other was ripped off from OSS work. Here's the deal, if it's important to you, protect it. Patents can be taken out by anyone. You want an idea to remain free? Then get the rights to it and make it so. Start a movement, raise the cash, and make it happen. Whining after the fact is a sorry excuse for inaction. Hate the patent system? Get in gear and organize a formal complaint.
Corollary to all this: if no change is taking place then noone else cares or sees a problem.
... I'm sitting in my basement office on-line and mostly working. I have a ceramic space heater running (Canada, eh) and my desk is next to the furnace room. The noise from both those appliances dwarfs that of the three computers in the room. I wish I could hear my computer!
Frankly, the quiet whoosh of a computer fan is kind of soothing. Just a gentle white noise to screen out the really distracting stuff coming from outside the house.
Anyways, let's say you get a 100% quiet PC. What do you do? Sit in the silence? As if! You play loud games, crank up the tunes, or worse, listen to the click and clatter of keyboard and mouse.
... that's my wife. Just kidding.
It's actually Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Clever bastard! Just kidding.
I worked with imagery analysts in the pre-digital age. You wanted to see a field of camouflaged T-64 tanks in your picture? No problem. Change your mind and want instead to see the Soviet fleet exiting harbour at battle stations? Heck, it could be that too! They'd just change the captions. It was a standing joke. They worked hard and honestly I'm sure, but only they really knew the difference.
First: Some following posts show the author didn't even do a rudimentary search of the archive let alone anything else. A place to start for example, "Where are all these zillions of states hiding in a black hole?" Mottola said in a recent article in New Scientist magazine. "It is quite literally incomprehensible." or The "unique and remarkable properties" of a gravastar "could explain several high-energy astrophysical phenomena that now are puzzling," says Marek Abramowicz, a black hole expert at Gothenburg University. Oh, and Mottola was a researcher at Los Alamos' Theoretical Division. RTFA, dude.
... yes, it was released by a very presitigious research lab.
Second: Anyone involved with the scientific community in the least, should know that peer review is actually quite a contentious issue and by no means considered as accounting for "all fault-finding".
Third: The theory itself resolves some troubling issues with black hole theory. The latter has become so fashionable that even lay men speak of them without seeming to question some of the root concepts that stretch all but a seasoned physicist's imagination. A quote from a related article: Physicists have struggled for years to account for the huge entropy of black holes, and largely have failed. Unlike their black hole counterparts, Gravastars would have a very low entropy.
Finally: This linkis to the Los Alamos release
Before mp3's didn't people used to tape music from the FM radio? Crappy quality but good enough and then mp3's and all that happened. But, improved FM quality, might mean a return to people recording from radio. RIAA's job is easier because a royalty system is well established. Users are happier because the threat of legal pursuit is much, much more remote (never impossible). Seems win-win.
This seems to be an excellent point echoed (less succinctly) in some other posts. Some questions come to mind:
a) How much of an edge are we losing as we evolve software and hardware? Is bloat and inefficiency cancelling out CPU performance increase? Or are we making net gains?
Thought: We are making net gains, so the worry is really about efficiency. But we still seem to be inside the 80/20 criteria i.e. the extra effort to increase the efficiency of software is offset by the relatively small performance increase that can be had.
b) The remedy to pervasive DRA seems to be in OSS. Can we get to the point where OSS OS'es, wordprocessors, spreadsheets, and other office apps are "good enough" i.e. ubiquitous format and sufficient features to satisfy all but the most esoteric requirements?
Thought: The counter to the DRA worry is that at the speeds of most office suite software, any DRA effects will pass unoticed. There is no OSS software that seems to satisfy general user needs the way the commercial office suites and OS'es do. Even amongst the OSS savvy, the use of OSS for real work is still low (sysadmins,etc. being exception).
... because:
...).
1) the unsprung weight is not so important a factor since subways (e.g. Montreal metro) run on smooth tracks;
2) the increased efficiency will mean less heat generation which becomes a problem in summer and necessitates air-conditioning (massively inefficient); and
3) decrease in the noise levels.
Note, a subway version would not have the power concerns that necessitate batteries and small diesels (although with hydrogen fuel cells
... hope you don't claim to be a scientist.
"During those days there was a measurable difference in the diurnal temprature variations due to lack of contrails."
The above statement, except the part in italics is possibly true. The "measurable difference" is only if you choose your margin of error to favour what you want to believe.
And that adjustment of data is what makes climate change and human involvement such bunk. Case in point: if we understand the atmospheric chemistry so very well as to make the dire predictions of our effect on it, why are we continually surprised by it(auroras at unexpected heights)?
It seems the height of presumption to believe that we humans, greatly outnumbered as we are by numerous other species, have anything but a local impact on this huge complex planet. Signs of our passage, like cockroach droppings, may be everywhere but it does not mean that we are having any effect in the grand scheme.
... is how researchers have propagated the disease. In fact, the transmission means is unknown in part because we don't yet know the agent (as explained here). So, as in so many things, that the wolves might get and propagate the disease is just wild-assed FUD.
Point is, it wasn't their only relay but it was their first.
... and nothing has been heard? Honestly, who in their right minds would have key communication for their project lie with the agency (NASA) that stands to be most embarassed by any Beagle success? You can bet China will not entrust anything important to NASA.
... assuming they don't get jammed.
The one hope is that Jodrell picks up something
Love a good conspiracy.
Maybe we should look for dreams not things.
Flight wasn't a technology. The Wright brothers were addressing a dream. Humanity had wanted to fly since antiquity. New technologies over time merely addressed the dream until one was successful. Note too that flight was enabled by technology that wasn't cutting edge (levers, wire, canvas, internal combustion engine).
So if a technology is not a purpose and nothing is "cutting edge" without a context, then what are the dreams of today? We've been to the moon. We can travel the planet on a whim. We can eat what and when we want. We live to a ripe old age and can stave of suffering and needless death. (Caveat: when the preceding is economically advantageous.) So what does humanity want?
For example, nanotechnology seems cutting edge but the uses for it seemed to have followed rather than preceded its development. Besides being a neat thing to do, why exactly are we doing it? What is the vision?
Currently, humanity's dreams seem to revolve around the ideal entertainment device (the drive towards a holo-deck experience has been pushing the world of PC development). That seems a bit meagre compared to the dream of flying.
... what exactly is it that you are trying to mount. The advice in the posts so far speak about heat and power concerns as well as industry standard dimensions. Whoa! You said "home".
So let's say (old gear scenario) a hub/switch, old PC as server, cable modem, T5 cable (you said "clutter" so one assumes no wifi); typical to home needs. Negligible heat, negligible power. So what the heck do you need even a "small rack" for?
Think: a cabinet rack must necessarily have a larger footprint than the existing gear it encloses. A cabinet will have all the same wiring clutter leading in and out of it. So it's unclear what you hope to gain.
If you want to make things look nice, mount the gear out of sight (closet, furnace room (my own set up)) or stick it in a piece of furniture (as many of the posts here suggest). Total cost can be zero.
Industry went to racks primarily to make use of vertical space for the large number of units typical of an industrial set up. Clutter is addressed with trunking, bundling, and raised flooring.
... because by establishing the levy, they'd also be effectively saying that they are not going to pursue the RIAA "shock and awe suing" campaign. Look at it as if they'd be saying, "Download all you want. We believe we're being fairly compensated."
Now, the last hurdle of the conscience driven user is gone. You don't have to feel the least bit guilty about downloading because you are paying for it.
So be a good consumer. Get out there and get the best bang for your buck that you possibly can!!