"I think this contraption needs a lot more work, but eventually musicans will become obsolete."
Not until the contraption gains a self/id/soul/ego. Which is never going to happen.
26584 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2007
... that it can't be any worse than autotune.
And then I thought about it, and realized that it will be. Much, much worse.
Has anybody ever used the phrase "popular music winter"?
Not really a "git orf me lawn" moment. At least not yet. If you like music, be afraid. Very afraid.
I didn't say they didn't know what they were doing, I said they don't fully understand the tools.
Any dumb-ass can break all the store-front windows on Main Street using a 22oz framing hammer, but that doesn't mean he knows how to frame a house, nor does it make him a carpenter.
I've seen a ground-strike take out all the plugged in electronics in three properly wired houses[0] surrounding the strike point ... strangely enough, an identically wired fourth house was closest to the strike by about 20 feet, and yet remained untouched.
Lightning is funny stuff.
[0] Post-Korea tract housing in Santa Rosa, California.
Nah, one slab. Bottom floor, common area for family. Next floor up, kids bedrooms, a couple baths. maybe office space and/or a large common landing. Next floor up, master suite.
Note that I'm assuming off-grid, so no electricity wasting by heating of water at point of use, and no electric heat and cooling. All that is covered by a GSHP. The single slab, as described, should be able to handle that overnight, even in northern climes (how much juice do you use when sleeping?). During the day, the PVs recharge the slab, and handle electricity needs for the house. When the sun is not available and the slab is discharged, an appropriately sized propane generator handles the house's needs, including recharging the slab.
Works for me, but I'm not using concrete/carbon for my electricity storage.
If you're not properly insulated, start there ...
0.5 meters (just under 20 inches) does not get you below the frost line in much of the US. The only house I have owned on the East Coast required over twice that for a foundation (42 inches, to be exact). Granted, it was a perimeter foundation, not a slab ... They have a fetish for basements in that neck of the woods.
... from bleeding off to ... err ... ground?
Presumably you can't use reinforcing steel. Where do I put my Ufer ground?
Can I bolt an auto lift down on it? (I won't ever own a garage without a lift again. HIGHLY recommended.)
What happens if the dawg lifts his leg on the corner of the foundation? Every day for a decade?
What does it cost to dig a 45 cubic meter (60 cubic yards, close enough) hole in the ground, and then fill it full of this mixture? (60 yards of concrete, delivered, is kinda spendy. I'm sure it'll cost a lot more with the carbon in it. To say nothing of the cost of testing, then disposing of 60 yards of material removed from the hole.)
What happens when it develops a huge crack, right down the middle? (With a block that big, you know it will.)
And last, but hardly least, How does the above price compare to equivalent energy storage in LiFePO batteries?
I won't mention size ... but the LiFePo batteries will easily fit in a space smaller than a tack trunk.
"How do "properly set up systems" get properly set up in the first place?"
Competent administrators ... or, in the world of Linux, competent distro maintainers.
"Do they come like that out of the box?"
Honestly? I haven't checked recently.
So I just downloaded the latest Slackware installation DVD ISO, burned it to appropriate media, and installed it on a completely blank computer, accepting all defaults.
Everything works out of the box. I would not hesitate to use this system as a loaner for MeDearOldMum, should her computer HaltAndCatchFire. All I would need to add is her printer, near as I can tell, and thanks to CUPS that's handeable via GUI. (Note that I'd have to add her printer regardless of OS; she's afraid of plugging in hardware.)
"No, they need tweaking."
Slackware 15.0 doesn't seem to. Perhaps your distro maintainer is incompetent?
"Seriously none of SystemD's supposed improvements have much relevance to the hordes of headless VMs or cloud instances that are the overwhelming majority of the installed base...."
It also does absolutely nothing for the hoards of Debian and RedHat derivative desktop users who will never even touch the init system because they probably don't know it exists, but even if they did they'd be afraid to go near it. All the while massively increasing the initialization system in size and complexity, thus dragging in many bugs that should have been unnecessary ... to say nothing of increasing the size, scope and number of potential attack vectors. FOR NO GOOD REASON,
"most of all because it constantly and inexorably grows like a particularly aggressive cancer whilst becoming harder and harder to avoid."
Yep. As I said here, over 6 years ago.
That's why I call it the systemd-cancer ... Consider: it takes root in its host, eats massive quantities of resources as it grows, spreads unchecked into areas unrelated to the initial infection, and refuses to die unless physically removed from the system, all the while doing absolutely nothing of benefit to the host.
"I do wonder if the increased speed is truly worth the extra complexity, though."
And if there is any reason at all for this kind of thing on MeDearOldMum's computer. Maybe 1 person in 100,000 might, possibly, make use of this kind of thing very occasionally and perhaps 1 in 10,000,000 on a daily/weekly basis?
So why inflict it on the vast majority of users? Implement it as a kernel module, and allow those that need it to load it.
It's a file system. Logically placing the files into subdirectories according to their use only makes sense.
A library uses the Dewy Decimal System[0] for a reason, EVEN THOUGH that system has evolved over time as our knowledge has increased.
Why people think that such a complex system that evolves over time as capability is added to that system shouldn't become more complex is beyond me.
[0] Yes, I know, there are other ways of storing books in a library. UDC, BISAC, LCC, etc, all have their merits and problems, but anyone with a couple of brain cells to rub together should have no issues working within their frameworks. Note that none have become more condensed over the years.
""The Reg FOSS desk is very happy that he hasn't had to edit an init script in many years, and does not miss such things even one tiny bit, but all the same it's going to irk some people.""
This is a null argument, and always has been. A properly setup system very, very rarely needs tweaking. I can't remember the last time I needed to tweak a startup script on any of the computers that help to run Chez jake.
I have, however, had to make custom startups for various clients over the years. For most of those, the systemd-cancer was shown to be more of a hindrance than a help. As a consultant, I have to show my clients why I was going with either BSD or Slackware instead of the kitchensinkware boutique Linux varietal that they had been sold on.
The systemd-cancer causes far, far more problems out in the real world than it pretends to fix.
"hater", Prop. Noun, often used by the under-educated (usually teenagers) in order to attempt to put down actual educated people (usually adults).
Translation of 'hater' into English: "Everybody who doesn't agree with what I have faith in, despite the fact that I (me, personally) actually have faith in the belief of the given faith, and can't actually offer up a real, honest scientific argument confirming it's existence."
Alternative translation: "I hate adults. They don't know anything!".
"You are assuming a very earth-like biology for these aliens which requires oxygen, water, salt and animals as food."
Nope. The first three are important chemicals for industrial purposes. A creature's base metabolism does not alter their chemical properties.
I added the last one mostly for shock value (for small values of "shock", at least in this forum), but then again you never know until you know, and we just plain don't know.
"Everything else isn't hard to find and often easier to harvest from smaller moons/asteroids over getting down and up through Earth's gravity well."
Not a lot of liquid water[0] or free oxygen[1] on the smaller moons & asteroids. Nor salt[2].
[0] Melting ice for transport is prohibitively expensive. As is cutting it into blocks and physically placing them in the hold. Water is used in almost every industrial plant in existence here on Earth, I see no reason why aliens would not find it as useful as we do. And ours is free for the pumping, thanks to the fluke of our location with respect to the Sun.
[1] Oxygen is a fairly dangerous chemical in it's free state, binding explosively with many other chemicals. For that reason, it's a very important industrial chemical. Our atmosphere is probably a rarity in the Universe, making it a treasure trove for visiting aliens. Probably.
[2] You don't need to be told how important a chemical salt is ... Again, I'm sure aliens will find it equally useful, even if it's not required for their metabolism.
"4:04? Why not set it to 5:00, so it can be 5 o'clock somewhere?"
Because this is not "somewhere", it's "here". Also, because it's always 5 o'clock somewhere there is no need to set a reminder.
Oh, is that the time? Have a beer :-)
That, and because explaining jokes takes the edge off them ... even when I can see that joke from where I type.
Nah. Us humans came up with all that.
The incremental steps learning what we now call solid-state physics, starting in the early 1800s, are easy for anyone to research for themselves. There are absolutely zero huge jumps in knowledge, it's all micro-steps at a time. Yes, things have become smaller/faster quite quickly, but that's just scaling ... a transistor is still a transistor, regardless of size.
Strangely enough, as a pilot I can see the crashing happening more than you might think.
First of all, any intelligence that can manage interstellar travel would have long ago given up on the idea of computerized auto-pilots as a bad idea in confined areas such as a planet's airspace. They will in all likelihood be under manual control. If the people [0] doing the flying are used to maneuvering in the vacuum of space, or in a very tenuous atmosphere like that of Mars, perhaps an atmosphere as dense as Earth's would cause trouble, especially with their reflexes.
"They reported nonhuman biologicals."
In other words, the drone crashed into a tree and got splinters.
More likely, the "vehicle" was a drug smuggling submarine, any "alien pilots" were from one of the drug cartels, and the "non-human biologicals" were cocaine, fentanyl and/or pot. Throw in the military rumo(u)r mill (kind of like the kid's game of Telephone[0], but on steroids), and Bob's yer Auntie.
Perhaps appropriately, my spall chucker wants me to change fentanyl to entangle.
[0] That's "Chinese Whispers" to you Brits.
"must visit in person but to largely only do so in country areas of the US"
People keep saying this. It's not true.
Rather, apparently they only visit (and crash) in areas completely under the control of the US military, in sooper sekrit locations out of view of civilians and where the grunts picking up the pieces don't carry cell phone cameras.
"US politics is now concerned with very little else than conspiracy theories."
To be fair, most of the nutjobs, wackos, outright loonies and complete idiots are confined to Congress. The Senate is still relatively sane, being composed mostly of professional shameless liars who actually know they are lying and can sometimes be convinced to change their minds, if it'll get them votes or money.
The diamond is the semiconductor.
Don't worry, nobody's cutting up the Crown Jewels any time soon, these diamonds are grown using chemical vapor deposition.
I've seen diamond FETs in operation in the lab. It's going to open up some fun new tech once the boffins get a good handle on it.
He is also going to have to pay the cost of the initial permit, which he tried to ignore.
Elon's a putz. He's just looking for free advertising. I'd recommend not giving it to him.
Or, in the words of my now aging peer group "Please Do Not Feed The Trolls!".
The Press will not listen, alas.
"Is it?"
Yes, it is.
"Do you really think these "free" services are a) actually free"
No, I do not. The advertisers are paying a pretty penny for access to the merchandise (that would be the users, for those not paying attention).
"b) philanthropic activities?"
Don't be daft. twitter is^Wwas a for-profit organization, and the shareholders liked it that way.
"And who said anything about "forever" apart from you?"
Implied in your "fucking about with service used my many millions worldwide is a pretty dick move" comment ... I agree with you, it IS a dick move. But WTF did those millions expect? "Free" tweeting for life? Not on your nelly ... it's only "free" so long as the advertisers are happy. With the current Boss seemingly intent in running the joint into the ground, and the advertisers grumbling ... well, do the math; It's not exactly calculating Hohmann transfers.
"a lot of things could come under that. Linux, for example."
Linux is not a "service". The ability to tweet world-wide is.
I'll have access to the latest FOSS Linux kernel until roughly the heat death of the Universe, or I get bored, whichever comes first. I'll have access[0] to the twitter servers until Musk takes his ball and runs away home with it, and I have absolutely no say in the matter.
[0] Note that this is strictly an example; I personally never bought into the world of twits.