In a weird way, they kinda actually are. More specifically, using them. Far as I know, using such a device when suspected of either crime would fall under destruction of property / interfering with investigation laws.
Unfortunatly, they can just keep trying. Over and over again. Eventually people will have grown tired of the massive public effort required to kill this stuff, and it'll pass.
I really wish there was a legal remedy for this. Some kind of "can't try it again for 10 years" law. Of course who decides what law is too similar to a previously failed one is the huge problem with that.. but a man can dream.
Damn. That sounds much rougher than what I went through. I get much the same "late night burst of energy" problem.. but not to the degree or effect you describe.
One thing I'd suggest adding to the list of things to try (if you haven't already), as silly as it sounds, is to go the opposite direction with regards to distractions. I find it almost impossible to "just" go to sleep in a quiet room. If I put a movie or old tv show on however and watch it from my bed.. I'll nod off within 20 minutes. Probably a combination of distracting the brain so it doesn't dwell on stuff and not feeling like you are losing free time for the sake of a good nights rest.
Made a comment about this below. I used to run through the week on 4 or 5 hours a night, then crash on the weekends. It's tough to do, but if you force yourself to get a decent amount of sleep through the week, and cut back on the sleeping in (I still do sleep in a few hours.. ) it makes a huge difference. It's hard to give up that extra "winding down" time at the end of the day.. but not feeling like a zombie all the time is worth it.
For me, a lot of the crap I was eating was habitual. I'd always have a can of pop on my desk, and a bag of chips on the weekend... not necessarily because I was in the mood, but because that's what I always did. It sounds really stupid in retrospect, but you get into that kinda cycle without thinking much about it and it becomes hard to break.
I got used to drinking water throughout the day (took some getting used to, but now it's habitual like the pop was) and got into snacking on fruits and vegetables. I'll still have a bag of chips or can of pop.. when I'm having a craving for it. But I no longer do it automatically. The occasional 12oz steak with potato and peppercorn gravy and ceasar salad side dish isn't gonna make much difference in the long scheme of things. As long as you keep that "occasional" in there.
And I totally agree, it's the "I can't have a slice of that cake cause I'm on a diet" types that just end up either failing outright or gaining back quickly anything they lose when they finally "give in".
I think it's more the behavior of people who grind away on 4 or 5 hours sleep a night through the week then crash on the weekend. I used to be one of them. When I forced myself into getting more sleep through the week, I noticed a huge difference in how I felt and how much energy I had. Also weekends are much more enjoyable when you get up at 10 (so still sleeping in for a few hours) and feel great vice waking up at 2am and feeling groggy.
If anyone is in the same place I was, I seriously recommend trying it. Set a consistent bed time. It's well worth losing a few hours of "minecraft time" for the extra energy (and probably health benifits). At the very least try it for a week.
Personally I avoid most stuff that tries to be something else because yeah, it really doesn't. I focus on adding healthy stuff that stands on it's own. I'll have a smaller steak but with some veggies, sliced up tomato, salad, etc. End up just as satisfied, but significantly healthier.
I will say though that indeed some of the "substitutes" are ok when mixed in with other stuff. I make a good sausage and pepper penne in tomato sauce with fake vegi based sausage that I'd challange anyone to a pepsi challange with (if I had the ambition to make a meal twice just to win a bet that is..).
Yup. Maybe if you want to be an athlete or bodybuilder this stuff matters.. but for the average guy who just wants to make it up the stairs without running out of breath.. I think that's all it really takes.
Fun thing is that 1 and 2 are somewhat in balance. Put a little more time in at the gym and then enjoy your 12oz steak and potato. Skip the gym and eat salad. Obviously it only works that absolutely in my head.. but I think over time their is some truth to that general idea. At the very least it works fine for me!
Wouldn't mind sharing it, but the control panel is so specialized it would be absolutely useless to anyone else.
Re:Here we go... so what do people read now?
on
Introducing SlashBI
·
· Score: 1
I said it in an earlier comment, so may be a bit redundant, but my experience is that there are lots of really good niche boards.. but I've yet to find any with the kind of diversity we have here.
The big draw of slashdot is you have people from all kinds of backgrounds, age groups, and experiences discussing things at about the same level. It's a nice mixing pot for general nerdy discussion.
Honest answer.. I think this is the kinda career you stumble into.
I've worked with some high end audio stuff (and cobranet) as part of another project. Never saught it out.. wouldn't even know how to.. and probably not enough work in the field to "go into it". Just something that comes up and if you happen to be around.. you get sucked into it for a bit.
Something to note with using multiple USB audio devices.. you run outa bandwidth. Expect to need to add a few USB interface cards.
My current setup is kinda fun:
I have: - a "main" PCIe sound card - my internal sound card - a USB guitar interface - and an auxilary USB sound interface
I use jackd to manage the "main" card and the two usb interfaces. The internal sound card is alsa only. I have connected the line out of the internal sound card to line in of the "main" sound card.. this allows me to get sound from non-jack aware apps into my jack setup (screw alsaplug).
jack.plumbing and friends let you specify fairly powerful routing rules.. and I've written a custom "control panel" that lets me quickly switch between various configurations. I use a whole mixture of stuff (rackarrack, jamin, ardour, jackEQ, jackrack, meterbridge.. the list goes on).
My god.. I know it's my fault.. and there is a preview.. but a simple "hey dumbass, you've got a tag there that's not a valid html tag" warning would be kinda nice and easy to do. They filter out what tags you can use _anyway_. How about throwing that info down to us!
For something like this, you probably don't want to mess around. Jack is great when it works.. but it's not designed to run continuously without a hitch for months on end.
Hate to say it, but proprietary works here. Something this scale, you want stuff made by companies who specialize (and whos reputation rides on) equiptment that you can stick on a wall/rack and ignore for years. Worship solid state.. pay attention to compatibility lists.. google for " " in the same query.. etc.
The big bonus of slashdot has always been the diversity. We arn't _just_ hardware or gamers or programmers or wannabie lawyers or armchair politicians.. it's the mixture of skills, ages, and experiences that makes the discussions interesting. If you want to talk programming.. lots of well run programming programming boards. Same with hardware, gaming, politics, IP law, etc.
I know of nothing with the same general appeal nor diversity of slashdot. We all somehow manage to talk on each others level, while bringing different viewpoints and experience into the discussion (most of the time). It's a beautiful thing to lose:(
Problem is slashdot has a huge legacy to ride out. People like me who've checked slashdot as part of their daily morning/lunch/whatever routine for in some cases over a decade and corny as it sounds, have lots nostalgic memories from past discussions. It takes a long damn time for that to erode away (see also: the simpsons).
I don't even have any specific objections... this just feels wrong somehow. Maybe I'm cynical or just following the trend of slashdot pulse, sponsored "ask slashdot", slashtv, etc.. but this feels like when a big company buys out some site you like and runs it down the drain. Obviously that's not exactly what happened here, but I'm starting to think Cmdr. Taco leaving had the same effect.. like maybe he was holding back this tide.
Right now it feels like the "gliding on legacy" phase.. coming soon is the "trying to gather new audience" stage.. then the "please come back, we're still cool and returning to our roots stage" and finally.. acceptance and forgiveness.
I hope I'm wrong. I'd love to see slashdot return to its former glory.. or at least turn into something better than what it was. It managed to turn back from it's "digg" path a few years back.. maybe it can do the same here.
I have always wondered this! I mean what is the use case here. Leave your food in the stove all day and have it times so it cooks a half hour before you get home? It's not even worth listing all the reasons this is a bad idea.
I use a considerably simpler setup to achieve the same. Namely, I use my phone as a simple timer when cooking (ignoring the stove timer completely) and carry it around with me. Might be nice to get an alert when the stove has pre-heated.. but that generally takes the same amount of time (11 to 14 minutes depending on temperature).
The automation proved to be unreliable too - with switches missing commands randomly. And even the Radio Shack branded alarm clock with X10 integration as a central home controller was garbage. It allowed programming 2 pairs of on/off times, maximum, for any of eight X10 modules - but any time you forgot to erase an existing program before trying to add a new one, the clock would completely crash/freeze up if you accidentally exceeded that 2 pair per module storage limit!
Indeed. It was for the most part a one way protocol with no handshaking and prone to "lost" commands. Even with a decent controller (I had an ocelot, which _still_ retails for a few hundred dollars).. every other component in the system was so shitty and unreliable that it was little more than a neat toy. And of course as you said, there was no middle ground between x10 and the really expensive commercial application stuff.
I do remember the smarthome stuff.. but there was so much other similar sounding things being thrown around it was hard to figure out what was current. I think that too was part of the problem. You kept hearing about home automation.. but you were hearing about it from so many different directions.
If you had a full computer (mail, etc), displays around the house
That sums up the vision I had in the 90s perfectly. I pictured star trek-esq touchscreen panels in place of light switches, and maybe a full panel in main rooms that would let me do more. I pictured voice notifications throughout the house (yes, I was a star trek junkie!). It would be so damn cool, and the tech to do that is actually pretty cheap right now.. but as you said, beyond the cool factor it's kinda pointless (and I might want to sell this house some day...).
Home automation scales like the internet. Two lamp modules and a perl script is about as useful of an automation system as an "internet" containing exactly two computers. Usefulness scales as some polynomial of number of devices...
I was at one point working towards the kind of stuff you describe. Even had a hilariously Rube Goldberg curtain opener dealie (never really got it to work). I never got to the "whole house wired up" stage.. but that's where I wanted to go.
Currently I've scaled back to the few things I found legitimately useful. Specifically:
- Lights in the bedroom. Being able to turn the lights on/off while lying in bed is a surprisingly simple convenience that so many live without. - Christmas! My old x10 stuff always makes an appearance around Christmas time (occupancy sensors controlling christmas tree lights, other lights on timers, etc..).
I have "smart" thermostats.. and coffee pot has it's own built in timer function (having been built in the last few decades..).
No more central control (I used an ocelot controller back when I was playing with this). Just a few select standalone components.
Used to be really interested in home automation. Had an x10 setup for a while (terrible system by the way) and played around with some custom software.
There was a time when everyone thought this was the future (along with virtual reality and other such things). I bought into it. I figured by now I’d be casually shouting orders at the various appliances in my house.
We now have the technology to do all the cool stuff we dreamed about in the early 90s. The big problem however, is once you automate the lights, temperature, and coffee pot what else is there that makes any sense (and even the lights are more of a novelty than much practical benefit). The “house of the future” feeling is cool and it’s fun to play with... but most of it is impractical and would seem to add very little benefit for a whole lot of complexity.
Slashdot Mirror
yes, yes I did :(
In a weird way, they kinda actually are. More specifically, using them. Far as I know, using such a device when suspected of either crime would fall under destruction of property / interfering with investigation laws.
Unfortunatly, they can just keep trying. Over and over again. Eventually people will have grown tired of the massive public effort required to kill this stuff, and it'll pass.
I really wish there was a legal remedy for this. Some kind of "can't try it again for 10 years" law. Of course who decides what law is too similar to a previously failed one is the huge problem with that.. but a man can dream.
Damn. That sounds much rougher than what I went through. I get much the same "late night burst of energy" problem .. but not to the degree or effect you describe.
One thing I'd suggest adding to the list of things to try (if you haven't already), as silly as it sounds, is to go the opposite direction with regards to distractions. I find it almost impossible to "just" go to sleep in a quiet room. If I put a movie or old tv show on however and watch it from my bed.. I'll nod off within 20 minutes. Probably a combination of distracting the brain so it doesn't dwell on stuff and not feeling like you are losing free time for the sake of a good nights rest.
Yup.
Made a comment about this below. I used to run through the week on 4 or 5 hours a night, then crash on the weekends. It's tough to do, but if you force yourself to get a decent amount of sleep through the week, and cut back on the sleeping in (I still do sleep in a few hours.. ) it makes a huge difference. It's hard to give up that extra "winding down" time at the end of the day.. but not feeling like a zombie all the time is worth it.
Indeed.
For me, a lot of the crap I was eating was habitual. I'd always have a can of pop on my desk, and a bag of chips on the weekend... not necessarily because I was in the mood, but because that's what I always did. It sounds really stupid in retrospect, but you get into that kinda cycle without thinking much about it and it becomes hard to break.
I got used to drinking water throughout the day (took some getting used to, but now it's habitual like the pop was) and got into snacking on fruits and vegetables. I'll still have a bag of chips or can of pop .. when I'm having a craving for it. But I no longer do it automatically. The occasional 12oz steak with potato and peppercorn gravy and ceasar salad side dish isn't gonna make much difference in the long scheme of things. As long as you keep that "occasional" in there.
And I totally agree, it's the "I can't have a slice of that cake cause I'm on a diet" types that just end up either failing outright or gaining back quickly anything they lose when they finally "give in".
I think it's more the behavior of people who grind away on 4 or 5 hours sleep a night through the week then crash on the weekend. I used to be one of them. When I forced myself into getting more sleep through the week, I noticed a huge difference in how I felt and how much energy I had. Also weekends are much more enjoyable when you get up at 10 (so still sleeping in for a few hours) and feel great vice waking up at 2am and feeling groggy.
If anyone is in the same place I was, I seriously recommend trying it. Set a consistent bed time. It's well worth losing a few hours of "minecraft time" for the extra energy (and probably health benifits). At the very least try it for a week.
Totally this.
Personally I avoid most stuff that tries to be something else because yeah, it really doesn't. I focus on adding healthy stuff that stands on it's own. I'll have a smaller steak but with some veggies, sliced up tomato, salad, etc. End up just as satisfied, but significantly healthier.
I will say though that indeed some of the "substitutes" are ok when mixed in with other stuff. I make a good sausage and pepper penne in tomato sauce with fake vegi based sausage that I'd challange anyone to a pepsi challange with (if I had the ambition to make a meal twice just to win a bet that is..).
Yup. Maybe if you want to be an athlete or bodybuilder this stuff matters.. but for the average guy who just wants to make it up the stairs without running out of breath.. I think that's all it really takes.
Fun thing is that 1 and 2 are somewhat in balance. Put a little more time in at the gym and then enjoy your 12oz steak and potato. Skip the gym and eat salad. Obviously it only works that absolutely in my head.. but I think over time their is some truth to that general idea. At the very least it works fine for me!
Wouldn't mind sharing it, but the control panel is so specialized it would be absolutely useless to anyone else.
I said it in an earlier comment, so may be a bit redundant, but my experience is that there are lots of really good niche boards .. but I've yet to find any with the kind of diversity we have here.
The big draw of slashdot is you have people from all kinds of backgrounds, age groups, and experiences discussing things at about the same level. It's a nice mixing pot for general nerdy discussion.
Honest answer.. I think this is the kinda career you stumble into.
I've worked with some high end audio stuff (and cobranet) as part of another project. Never saught it out.. wouldn't even know how to.. and probably not enough work in the field to "go into it". Just something that comes up and if you happen to be around .. you get sucked into it for a bit.
Look into jackd.
Something to note with using multiple USB audio devices.. you run outa bandwidth. Expect to need to add a few USB interface cards.
My current setup is kinda fun:
I have:
- a "main" PCIe sound card
- my internal sound card
- a USB guitar interface
- and an auxilary USB sound interface
I use jackd to manage the "main" card and the two usb interfaces.
The internal sound card is alsa only.
I have connected the line out of the internal sound card to line in of the "main" sound card.. this allows me to get sound from non-jack aware apps into my jack setup (screw alsaplug).
jack.plumbing and friends let you specify fairly powerful routing rules.. and I've written a custom "control panel" that lets me quickly switch between various configurations. I use a whole mixture of stuff (rackarrack, jamin, ardour, jackEQ, jackrack, meterbridge.. the list goes on).
and *you're
.. bad day for me :(
* google for "<product a> <product b>"
My god.. I know it's my fault.. and there is a preview.. but a simple "hey dumbass, you've got a tag there that's not a valid html tag" warning would be kinda nice and easy to do. They filter out what tags you can use _anyway_. How about throwing that info down to us!
Your missing reliability.
For something like this, you probably don't want to mess around. Jack is great when it works.. but it's not designed to run continuously without a hitch for months on end.
Hate to say it, but proprietary works here. Something this scale, you want stuff made by companies who specialize (and whos reputation rides on) equiptment that you can stick on a wall/rack and ignore for years. Worship solid state.. pay attention to compatibility lists.. google for " " in the same query.. etc.
The big bonus of slashdot has always been the diversity. We arn't _just_ hardware or gamers or programmers or wannabie lawyers or armchair politicians .. it's the mixture of skills, ages, and experiences that makes the discussions interesting. If you want to talk programming.. lots of well run programming programming boards. Same with hardware, gaming, politics, IP law, etc.
I know of nothing with the same general appeal nor diversity of slashdot. We all somehow manage to talk on each others level, while bringing different viewpoints and experience into the discussion (most of the time). It's a beautiful thing to lose :(
Problem is slashdot has a huge legacy to ride out. People like me who've checked slashdot as part of their daily morning/lunch/whatever routine for in some cases over a decade and corny as it sounds, have lots nostalgic memories from past discussions. It takes a long damn time for that to erode away (see also: the simpsons).
I don't even have any specific objections... this just feels wrong somehow. Maybe I'm cynical or just following the trend of slashdot pulse, sponsored "ask slashdot", slashtv, etc.. but this feels like when a big company buys out some site you like and runs it down the drain. Obviously that's not exactly what happened here, but I'm starting to think Cmdr. Taco leaving had the same effect.. like maybe he was holding back this tide.
Right now it feels like the "gliding on legacy" phase.. coming soon is the "trying to gather new audience" stage.. then the "please come back, we're still cool and returning to our roots stage" and finally .. acceptance and forgiveness.
I hope I'm wrong. I'd love to see slashdot return to its former glory.. or at least turn into something better than what it was. It managed to turn back from it's "digg" path a few years back.. maybe it can do the same here.
Anybody here ever actually use that?
I have always wondered this! I mean what is the use case here. Leave your food in the stove all day and have it times so it cooks a half hour before you get home? It's not even worth listing all the reasons this is a bad idea.
I use a considerably simpler setup to achieve the same. Namely, I use my phone as a simple timer when cooking (ignoring the stove timer completely) and carry it around with me. Might be nice to get an alert when the stove has pre-heated.. but that generally takes the same amount of time (11 to 14 minutes depending on temperature).
The automation proved to be unreliable too - with switches missing commands randomly. And even the Radio Shack branded alarm clock with X10 integration as a central home controller was garbage. It allowed programming 2 pairs of on/off times, maximum, for any of eight X10 modules - but any time you forgot to erase an existing program before trying to add a new one, the clock would completely crash/freeze up if you accidentally exceeded that 2 pair per module storage limit!
Indeed. It was for the most part a one way protocol with no handshaking and prone to "lost" commands. Even with a decent controller (I had an ocelot, which _still_ retails for a few hundred dollars) .. every other component in the system was so shitty and unreliable that it was little more than a neat toy. And of course as you said, there was no middle ground between x10 and the really expensive commercial application stuff.
I do remember the smarthome stuff.. but there was so much other similar sounding things being thrown around it was hard to figure out what was current. I think that too was part of the problem. You kept hearing about home automation.. but you were hearing about it from so many different directions.
If you had a full computer (mail, etc), displays around the house
That sums up the vision I had in the 90s perfectly. I pictured star trek-esq touchscreen panels in place of light switches, and maybe a full panel in main rooms that would let me do more. I pictured voice notifications throughout the house (yes, I was a star trek junkie!). It would be so damn cool, and the tech to do that is actually pretty cheap right now.. but as you said, beyond the cool factor it's kinda pointless (and I might want to sell this house some day...).
Home automation scales like the internet. Two lamp modules and a perl script is about as useful of an automation system as an "internet" containing exactly two computers. Usefulness scales as some polynomial of number of devices...
I was at one point working towards the kind of stuff you describe. Even had a hilariously Rube Goldberg curtain opener dealie (never really got it to work). I never got to the "whole house wired up" stage .. but that's where I wanted to go.
Currently I've scaled back to the few things I found legitimately useful. Specifically:
- Lights in the bedroom. Being able to turn the lights on/off while lying in bed is a surprisingly simple convenience that so many live without.
- Christmas! My old x10 stuff always makes an appearance around Christmas time (occupancy sensors controlling christmas tree lights, other lights on timers, etc..).
I have "smart" thermostats .. and coffee pot has it's own built in timer function (having been built in the last few decades..).
No more central control (I used an ocelot controller back when I was playing with this). Just a few select standalone components.
Used to be really interested in home automation. Had an x10 setup for a while (terrible system by the way) and played around with some custom software.
There was a time when everyone thought this was the future (along with virtual reality and other such things). I bought into it. I figured by now I’d be casually shouting orders at the various appliances in my house.
We now have the technology to do all the cool stuff we dreamed about in the early 90s. The big problem however, is once you automate the lights, temperature, and coffee pot what else is there that makes any sense (and even the lights are more of a novelty than much practical benefit). The “house of the future” feeling is cool and it’s fun to play with... but most of it is impractical and would seem to add very little benefit for a whole lot of complexity.