The classic solution to this at the utility scale is the pumped storage power plant. These consist of two reservoirs, and water is pumped uphill off peak and allowed to flow downhill through turbines on peak.
There is one here in upstate New York (in Gilboa) that has a generation capacity of 1200MW. I don't have any info on how long it can run. I do know that it can transition any one of its four pump-turbines from pumping to generating in about 90 seconds. I have actually stood next to one of these machines at Gilboa, and the scale of it is humbling.
I think the subject says it all. It's my TV; I bought it. If they want to lease me a TV, say, for about the same rate I would charge them for storage space and power for that TV, then they can put any restrictions on it they want. Otherwise, they should expect that I will hack it until it works right.
Hell, even old hands at Linux, such as myself, have had to face this sort of bullshit with respect to the "wrong" Linux distro. Witness this exchange discussing the use of Ubuntu on EPIA motherboards in an HTPC. I had had a specific problem with Ubuntu on EPIA and had had no luck finding an answer, so I asked:
Me: [after describing the problem and what I had tried] So, how did they fix this? I need to know
Gothmolly: Maybe because you insist on being a ubuntu fag^Wfanboy. Choose a real distro
This then degraded into a flamefest involving my pointing out the multiple Slackware systems I've been running for years with no issues, and issuing some... shall we say... not too polite comments aobut the company this bastard keeps.
The good news, though, was that someone else (thank you, orv) did have the answer and posted it.
The ability to log in as root can be useful if/home and/or/usr are on their own partitions/discs, and one or the other fails or fails to mount. Of course, bringing the system up in runlevel S can be a better answer in such a case.
What exactly makes linux the better ( or worse ) platform for DVDs here?
The fact that Linux does not respect the DRM, and therefore lets you skip over the crap at the start of the disc that the producers command you to see.
When I was in my 20's, (about ten to fifteen years ago), I had an arrangement where the computer and monitor sat on a low coffee table at one side of the room. A 3m extension cord was added both to the mouse and keyboard. I then sat in a beanbag chair with the keyboard in my lap and the mouse sitting on a tray on my right. The tray had short legs on it, which lifted it up about 20cm off the floor. This was positively the most comfortable computing arrangement I have ever had, and I miss it.
Unfortunately, my eyesight will no longer support me looking at a monitor from that distance without replacing it with a much larger model (I used a 14" monitor back then).
Of course, there's also another catch. The FAX-sending entity probably has a FAX line too. If they're claiming an existing business relationship with you, they can't very well deny you having an existing business relationship with them, now can they? And these new rules allow you to send junk FAXes to entities you have an existing business relationship with, don't they?
Actually, this just gave me a neat idea.
First off, I suggest that FAX machines should have the ability to read CID data, and that FAX lines should be subscribed to it.
What you then do with this data is up to you as the owner of the fax machine. I see three options:
First, you could have the FAX machine pick up the line for one second and then hang it back up when a blacklisted FAX number shows up on the CID. This would be the most efficient and least vengeful option.
Second, you could have the FAX machine fail to pick up the line when a blacklisted FAX number shows up on the CID. This is probably not the best choice, as your line is tied up ringing, and you don't really get much in return for it.
Third, and I only recommend this one for pooled-line and low-traffic FAX machines, you configure the FAX machine so that if a blacklisted or non-whitelisted FAX number sends something, the FAX machine drops to the lowest FAX protocol available (which is a 300 baud protocol) and makes liberal use of flow control. OTOH, if an approved fax number sends something, it will go to the fastest protocol (which is a 14,400 baud protocol) and receives into a buffer so that flow control is usually un-needed.
In all cases, any fax received should have the CID data printed on it, so that the guilty can be blacklisted.
In the interest of not getting too complex, I suggest the following:
Cell phone with looooooong-life battery
Radio with AM, FM, and weather
Means to charge the batteries in the above two items
Other things you might consider:
GPS receiver
If (and only if) you have a ham radio licence, a small 2m/440 HT and roll-up antenna.
If you do bring a GPS receiver, don't let it become a crutch. You should know how to read a map and how to dead-reckon, or you shouldn't be out wandering.
Putting a very short advertisement at the beginning of the Podcast is an obvious solution to this problem.
Additional points on this:
1. These ads would not have to pretend not to be ads, because they would not be airing on NCE-licenced stations
2. There would be a positive, specific number of listeners that NPR would be able to report back to the advertisers.... no guessing, estimating or extrapolating involved.
Now what's really known as a radio cut, When you can't say shit, and you can't say fuck? I really think you want to hear it But the radio stations, see, they still gonna fear it Yo, I thought this country was based upon freedom of speech, Freedom of press, freedom of your own religion To make your own decisions - that's baloney, 'cos If I gotta play by your rules, I'm bein' phoney.
Another thing to experiment with, if that doesn't work is to see if the problem continues if you remove the CDROM.
Nah, that's not it. I've had the CDROM out a couple of times for other reasons, but the DRQ problem remained. Removing longhaul looks like it has fixed the problem.
Most of the dma issues are caused by the longhaul module.
That's two votes for longhaul. I have just gotten home and disabled it and rebooted in the past five minutes or so, so it is too early to tell if that fixed it, but by the end of the night, I should have a pretty good idea. Thank you very much for the reply.
Maybe because you insist on being a ubuntu fag^Wfanboy. Choose a real distro.
Maybe you are blind. Let me add some emphasis to my original post....
"I've used multiple HDDs, of different brands, models, generations, and multiple motherboards, and multiple Linux distros. All of the HDDs plus ubuntu plus EPIA give this problem. Change the distro to Slackware and the problem goes away. Change to Fedora, the problem goes away. Change to Debian or Knoppix, it remains."
I've tried them all, but I will have you know that the only permanent installs of Linux on my network are all Slackware. This will remain the case until I find one I like better. Ubuntu shows promise --as a workstation only-- but for this one problem.
Not your hard drive - you need to update your kernel. Slack and Fedora may have it in there by default. SuSE will give you the same issue if you don't.
Thanks. I'll have a look at this after i try messing with longhaul.
Ubuntu + EPIA = [4295473.283000] hdb: timeout waiting for DMA
[4295473.283000] hdb: drive not ready for command
[4295473.386000] hdb: no DRQ after issuing MULTWRITE_EXT
Search for this combination of errors on Google and it turns up half a million posts from people pleading for help, in all cases I have seen, it is Debian-derivative + EPIA, and met with "Dude, your HDD is bad".
I've used multiple HDDs, of different brands, models, generations, and multiple motherboards, and multiple Linux distros. All of the HDDs plus ubuntu plus EPIA give this problem. Change the distro to Slackware and the problem goes away. Change to Fedora, the problem goes away. Change to Debian or Knoppix, it remains.
Well, then if there is no point in looking for The Next Big Thing(TM), then maybe we should start looking for The Next Big Thing After The Next Big Thing(TM).
the production quality is as good as a $20,000,000 studios is from their basement Mac running garage band,
Sometimes it is even better. It seems that, over time, the RMS of a CD has been gradually rising. You don't want to be the producer of the CD that was too quiet, so you ramp up your RMS, at the expense of either limiting your peaks, or having them clipped.
If you listen to a CD recorded about ten years ago, right alongside one that was recorded recently, you will usually have to turn up the volume on the older one, and while the newer one will sound rich at first, many of them also have a tendency to sound just wrong over time.
It would have been interesting if a normalisation standard had been incorporated into the spec for CDDA, sort of like there is in AC3; for example, requiring the overall RMS of a work to be at or below -20dbFS, enabling us to have both a decent amount of headroom for most types of music (i.e. no limiting and no clipping) and you can expect the sound to be an even volume across the board. Too late for that now, though.
The Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Sessions was literally "5 guys" around a Focusrite mic in a church. But that's the exception that proves the rule.
What you said. It was a good example of minimalist recording, and it worked very well with the slow-blues nature of the tracks they chose to record in that session. They were largely taking advantage of the acoustics of the church.
Looking at it another way, picture MTV Unplugged, but rather than unplugging the instrumetns, they unplugged the recording equipment.
For those not familiar with this album, the recording of Sweet Jane that appeared on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack that got lots or airplay about ten years ago is from this session. Minus, of course, the movie dialogue that somebody should be superimposed over the lead-in making me very grateful that I had my own copy of the album, unadulterated.
Slashdot Mirror
The classic solution to this at the utility scale is the pumped storage power plant. These consist of two reservoirs, and water is pumped uphill off peak and allowed to flow downhill through turbines on peak.
There is one here in upstate New York (in Gilboa) that has a generation capacity of 1200MW. I don't have any info on how long it can run. I do know that it can transition any one of its four pump-turbines from pumping to generating in about 90 seconds. I have actually stood next to one of these machines at Gilboa, and the scale of it is humbling.
I think the subject says it all. It's my TV; I bought it. If they want to lease me a TV, say, for about the same rate I would charge them for storage space and power for that TV, then they can put any restrictions on it they want. Otherwise, they should expect that I will hack it until it works right.
Hell, even old hands at Linux, such as myself, have had to face this sort of bullshit with respect to the "wrong" Linux distro. Witness this exchange discussing the use of Ubuntu on EPIA motherboards in an HTPC. I had had a specific problem with Ubuntu on EPIA and had had no luck finding an answer, so I asked:
Me: [after describing the problem and what I had tried] So, how did they fix this? I need to know
Gothmolly: Maybe because you insist on being a ubuntu fag^Wfanboy. Choose a real distro
This then degraded into a flamefest involving my pointing out the multiple Slackware systems I've been running for years with no issues, and issuing some ... shall we say ... not too polite comments aobut the company this bastard keeps.
The good news, though, was that someone else (thank you, orv) did have the answer and posted it.
Not only that, but they would also get to licence the technology to Time-Warner, Hughes, Commcast... All their competitors.
The ability to log in as root can be useful if /home and/or /usr are on their own partitions/discs, and one or the other fails or fails to mount. Of course, bringing the system up in runlevel S can be a better answer in such a case.
What exactly makes linux the better ( or worse ) platform for DVDs here?
The fact that Linux does not respect the DRM, and therefore lets you skip over the crap at the start of the disc that the producers command you to see.
When I was in my 20's, (about ten to fifteen years ago), I had an arrangement where the computer and monitor sat on a low coffee table at one side of the room. A 3m extension cord was added both to the mouse and keyboard. I then sat in a beanbag chair with the keyboard in my lap and the mouse sitting on a tray on my right. The tray had short legs on it, which lifted it up about 20cm off the floor. This was positively the most comfortable computing arrangement I have ever had, and I miss it.
Unfortunately, my eyesight will no longer support me looking at a monitor from that distance without replacing it with a much larger model (I used a 14" monitor back then).
Of course, there's also another catch. The FAX-sending entity probably has a FAX line too. If they're claiming an existing business relationship with you, they can't very well deny you having an existing business relationship with them, now can they? And these new rules allow you to send junk FAXes to entities you have an existing business relationship with, don't they?
Actually, this just gave me a neat idea.
First off, I suggest that FAX machines should have the ability to read CID data, and that FAX lines should be subscribed to it.
What you then do with this data is up to you as the owner of the fax machine. I see three options:
First, you could have the FAX machine pick up the line for one second and then hang it back up when a blacklisted FAX number shows up on the CID. This would be the most efficient and least vengeful option.
Second, you could have the FAX machine fail to pick up the line when a blacklisted FAX number shows up on the CID. This is probably not the best choice, as your line is tied up ringing, and you don't really get much in return for it.
Third, and I only recommend this one for pooled-line and low-traffic FAX machines, you configure the FAX machine so that if a blacklisted or non-whitelisted FAX number sends something, the FAX machine drops to the lowest FAX protocol available (which is a 300 baud protocol) and makes liberal use of flow control. OTOH, if an approved fax number sends something, it will go to the fastest protocol (which is a 14,400 baud protocol) and receives into a buffer so that flow control is usually un-needed.
In all cases, any fax received should have the CID data printed on it, so that the guilty can be blacklisted.
In the interest of not getting too complex, I suggest the following:
Other things you might consider:
If you do bring a GPS receiver, don't let it become a crutch. You should know how to read a map and how to dead-reckon, or you shouldn't be out wandering.
Putting a very short advertisement at the beginning of the Podcast is an obvious solution to this problem.
Additional points on this:
1. These ads would not have to pretend not to be ads, because they would not be airing on NCE-licenced stations
2. There would be a positive, specific number of listeners that NPR would be able to report back to the advertisers.... no guessing, estimating or extrapolating involved.
Now what's really known as a radio cut,
When you can't say shit, and you can't say fuck?
I really think you want to hear it
But the radio stations, see, they still gonna fear it
Yo, I thought this country was based upon freedom of speech,
Freedom of press, freedom of your own religion
To make your own decisions - that's baloney,
'cos If I gotta play by your rules, I'm bein' phoney.
-Above the Law, Freedom of Speech
I'm trying very hard to not buy stuff from the USA also (I'm in Canada) and it's tough to do.
Really? We still make stuff? I had no idea!
How do you figure I have lost? I shut you up for three whole days!
You started it.
Mod me down, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
Already have, and I doubt it. Just being an asshole won't get you anywhere.
Another thing to experiment with, if that doesn't work is to see if the problem continues if you remove the CDROM.
Nah, that's not it. I've had the CDROM out a couple of times for other reasons, but the DRQ problem remained. Removing longhaul looks like it has fixed the problem.
Thank you for the reply.
Most of the dma issues are caused by the longhaul module.
That's two votes for longhaul. I have just gotten home and disabled it and rebooted in the past five minutes or so, so it is too early to tell if that fixed it, but by the end of the night, I should have a pretty good idea. Thank you very much for the reply.
Maybe because you insist on being a ubuntu fag^Wfanboy. Choose a real distro.
Maybe you are blind. Let me add some emphasis to my original post....
"I've used multiple HDDs, of different brands, models, generations, and multiple motherboards, and multiple Linux distros. All of the HDDs plus ubuntu plus EPIA give this problem. Change the distro to Slackware and the problem goes away. Change to Fedora, the problem goes away. Change to Debian or Knoppix, it remains."
I've tried them all, but I will have you know that the only permanent installs of Linux on my network are all Slackware. This will remain the case until I find one I like better. Ubuntu shows promise --as a workstation only-- but for this one problem.
Fuck you and the whore you rode in on.
Not your hard drive - you need to update your kernel. Slack and Fedora may have it in there by default. SuSE will give you the same issue if you don't.
Thanks. I'll have a look at this after i try messing with longhaul.
There is a problem with DMA and the longhaul power module on the EPIA motherboards.
I was having the same problem with multiple drives. Once I removed longhaul it works like a charm.
Thanks. I'll try this first, then follow on with the kernel patch that another user recommended.
Ubuntu + EPIA = [4295473.283000] hdb: timeout waiting for DMA [4295473.283000] hdb: drive not ready for command [4295473.386000] hdb: no DRQ after issuing MULTWRITE_EXT
Search for this combination of errors on Google and it turns up half a million posts from people pleading for help, in all cases I have seen, it is Debian-derivative + EPIA, and met with "Dude, your HDD is bad".
I've used multiple HDDs, of different brands, models, generations, and multiple motherboards, and multiple Linux distros. All of the HDDs plus ubuntu plus EPIA give this problem. Change the distro to Slackware and the problem goes away. Change to Fedora, the problem goes away. Change to Debian or Knoppix, it remains.
So, how did they fix this? I need to know
I'm going to be even more irresponsible and invoke our good friend Tim Towtdi....
Well, then if there is no point in looking for The Next Big Thing(TM), then maybe we should start looking for The Next Big Thing After The Next Big Thing(TM).
the production quality is as good as a $20,000,000 studios is from their basement Mac running garage band,
Sometimes it is even better. It seems that, over time, the RMS of a CD has been gradually rising. You don't want to be the producer of the CD that was too quiet, so you ramp up your RMS, at the expense of either limiting your peaks, or having them clipped.
If you listen to a CD recorded about ten years ago, right alongside one that was recorded recently, you will usually have to turn up the volume on the older one, and while the newer one will sound rich at first, many of them also have a tendency to sound just wrong over time.
It would have been interesting if a normalisation standard had been incorporated into the spec for CDDA, sort of like there is in AC3; for example, requiring the overall RMS of a work to be at or below -20dbFS, enabling us to have both a decent amount of headroom for most types of music (i.e. no limiting and no clipping) and you can expect the sound to be an even volume across the board. Too late for that now, though.
The Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Sessions was literally "5 guys" around a Focusrite mic in a church. But that's the exception that proves the rule.
What you said. It was a good example of minimalist recording, and it worked very well with the slow-blues nature of the tracks they chose to record in that session. They were largely taking advantage of the acoustics of the church.
Looking at it another way, picture MTV Unplugged, but rather than unplugging the instrumetns, they unplugged the recording equipment.
For those not familiar with this album, the recording of Sweet Jane that appeared on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack that got lots or airplay about ten years ago is from this session. Minus, of course, the movie dialogue that somebody should be superimposed over the lead-in making me very grateful that I had my own copy of the album, unadulterated.