Recent Posts

1501

Living Room / Re: How to tell if the Universe is a computer simulation

« Last post by superboyac on October 11, 2012, 03:29 PM »

OK, one more.  This is a cotton thread going through a needle.  scanning electron microscope image (in other words, bad ass):

False colour scanning electron micrograph of a single strand of cotton thread passing through the eye of a needle. The cotton thread is seen to consist of many individual fibres.

Here's a shaved beard.  Where's the EPA??!!  We can't destroy our rain forests like this!

Shaved beard hair. Coloured Scanning Electron Micrograph (SEM) of beard stubble on a man's face. The hairs are embedded in skin, are cleanly cut, and have regrown after being shaved. Their short length would appear as stubble (a "five o'clock shadow"). A "wet shave" using a razor results in the hair ends being this cleanly cut.

1502

Living Room / Re: How to tell if the Universe is a computer simulation

« Last post by superboyac on October 11, 2012, 01:20 PM »

Since vision seems to be our most convincing sense, I always like to know what's the smallest thing we are actually able to see without needing to resort to artist's conceptions or shadows and such.  Here's one of them:


That's the tip of a needle made of tungsten.  Each ball is supposedly an individual atom.  Although, I think this is a colorized image.  But that's ok, at least it's still an actual picture of something.

1503

Living Room / Re: How to tell if the Universe is a computer simulation

« Last post by superboyac on October 11, 2012, 01:14 PM »

i wouldn't be so certain of the quantum theories.  they have as many holes as, um, *other* theories.  If you're interested, I've attached a really great summary of all that stuff in a short ~100 page document.

1504

Living Room / Re: How to tell if the Universe is a computer simulation

« Last post by superboyac on October 11, 2012, 01:04 PM »

^^apple made it, so of course, there's no replaceable battery.  And they close the genius shop down thousands of years ago, so there goes that.  That's why we gotta move to Titan.

1505

Living Room / Re: How to tell if the Universe is a computer simulation

« Last post by superboyac on October 11, 2012, 12:58 PM »

I have a good clip of Carl Sagan explaining this subject in a great short segment.  It appears to be an endless recursive loop.

1506

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by superboyac on October 11, 2012, 09:49 AM »

^^That sounds like a GREAT read!  I'm going to get it.

1507

Living Room / Re: RFID Tracking IDs in Schools - Non-compliance = Exclusion

« Last post by superboyac on October 10, 2012, 07:35 PM »

Oh well, at least if my life ever flashes before my eyes it'll be feature length and possibly give me a few more minutes of breathing than most people probably get.

-40hz (October 10, 2012, 03:00 PM)

1508

Living Room / Re: Major ISPs to implement "Six strike" rule

« Last post by superboyac on October 10, 2012, 12:44 PM »

getting convinced more and more to move to linux and stuff.

1509

General Software Discussion / Re: Linux Distro features matrix?

« Last post by superboyac on October 09, 2012, 04:56 PM »

Good info in previous posts, thanks.

A cool website would be one where you can pick your distro and DE from a drop down list, then choose the software binaries (whatever) that may not be easily available for your situation, and the website would output the proper installer package for your setup.

Or I can just learn how to do it myself...

1510

Living Room / Re: Barebone server: what else do I need to complete it?

« Last post by superboyac on October 09, 2012, 01:30 PM »

Here's what I have so far:
Tower:
Addonics RAID Tower XIII

• Only pure hard drive tower available in the US market from what I could tell.
• Need to find out if I can buy it WITHOUT their drive bays; just the tower

3-to-5 drive bay conversion:
iStarUSA BPN-DE350SS

• Only all-metal option out there.
• 80mm fan vs. 60mm fan for cheaper alternatives.  However, one (plastic) model from SuperMicro supposedly has 90mm that are extremely easy to replace.  Still, I think I prefer all-metal construction over a slightly larger fan.

Still need to choose:

• SAS/SATA expander cards
• Operating system (decide on this first because it affects everything else you use)
• RAM sufficient for whatever you plan on doing (rule of thumb: as much as you can afford/will fit)
• CPU - 64bit. Period. Speed and cores (or dual-CPUs) dependent on what it's for plus what OS you've selected.
• Power Supply - calc power requirements based on what's going in box and add about +20% over.
• DVD drive - to load OS and software. Cheap or recycled is ok here.
• Additional Cooling - the more in the box, the more air you'll need to move to keep everything happy. (Don't skip this.)
• NIC - two quality Gb-speed NICs minimum. Ideally with wake-on-lan features.
• Mobo - mostly determined by CPU selected. Get a server mobo - not one designed for desktops
• Backup power unit

1511

Living Room / Re: I want a Sony Xperia SX, but I think it's stupid to buy one.

« Last post by superboyac on October 09, 2012, 10:27 AM »

I gave up on this, but this is one bad ass little phone:

-- [Xperia(TM) SX SO-05D] is also Xi ("crossy") enabled, weighing approximately 95g with a 9.4mm smart body. In addition to advanced specifications, it also provides localized features such as infrared communication, the "Osaifu-Keitai" mobile wallet service and "One-seg" broadcast reception.

The US really is behind in terms of the phone tech.  I don't quite understand it.  Maybe we are more gullible with tech than other countries, and are more impressed with size and shiny pastic vs. things that matter.  We'll see how I feel after I try out the Lumia 920.

1512

General Software Discussion / Re: Linux Distro features matrix?

« Last post by superboyac on October 09, 2012, 10:17 AM »

I mean, the other confusing thing it that a lot of these distros are built upon other distros.  So there's a lot of layers of things and terminology for me to get used to.  We have these "original level" distros, then we have the distros built on top of those distros.  Then you have Linux Mint, which has a regular flavor and a Debian flavor (I don't get that yet).  Then you have the desktop environments which sound like you can put it on any distro, but I don't know if that's true.

Linux is the way of the future though, I'm beginning to see that better.  I know Windows and apple will still always be around, but the linux community is strong.  I'm not angry at linux anymore.  I think I used to be angry at them because I felt they were needlessly complicated things on the computer.  But that's not the case.  It's complex because of the true freedom of the beast.  Everyone is doing whatever they want with it and I like that.  it's like when I complain about windows, people can say "If you don't like it, go make your own OS!" and that's exactly what the Linux crowd does!  The balls!  The defiance!   

1513

General Software Discussion / Re: Linux Distro features matrix?

« Last post by superboyac on October 09, 2012, 09:59 AM »

First, after reading a few things on distrowatch, I'm leaning towards trying out Debian.  I like its description the best.

I still have a little misunderstanding:
when it comes to software, what determines if it's ready to go for a certain distro?  the distro itself, or the desktop environment?  I'm confused because desktop environments to me sound like they are just "skins" for the OS.  But there seems to be more to it than that...like the desktop environment determines to a degree which software you can run or something, which I always thought was completely a distro dependant issue.  Basically, if there's anything more to a desktop environment other than it just being a skin, please point that out.

1514

General Software Discussion / Re: Linux Distro features matrix?

« Last post by superboyac on October 09, 2012, 08:46 AM »

oh Yeah...I keep forgetting that I don't know the difference between a desktop environment and a distro.  Time to look that up...

1515

Living Room / Re: Animal Friends thread

« Last post by superboyac on October 07, 2012, 06:20 PM »

^that's hilarious.  i love how cats can be so high strung at times.

1516

General Software Discussion / Linux Distro features matrix?

« Last post by superboyac on October 07, 2012, 04:44 PM »

Everytime I want to dig into Linux, I run into the issue of which distro I want to play around with today.  And to answer that takes a lot of legwork for me.  Is there anything like a features matrix for several of the popular linux distros?  That way, I can look at the different features of each one and figure out which is the one that will be the best for a particular task.

1517

Living Room / Re: Barebone server: what else do I need to complete it?

« Last post by superboyac on October 05, 2012, 08:17 PM »

Well, iStardock has perhaps another model to consider:
http://www.istarusa....&sub=SATA/%20SAS

What interests me is the trayless design.  I know I won't be swapping out too much, but why not get the feature if it is easier?  This particular model is made of aluminum which is better than plastic for the Addonics.  Any opinions?


Link to in-depth review
Note: this review is for another similar model, but I don't know if it's the better model.  I think it may be the more updated model, but the picture above is the all metal model, which I probably prefer.

regarding noise:

On powering up, the noise from the fans in the top cage was very noticeable - not unpleasant, but definitely there.  Whereas I normally have to be within three feet of the machine in order to hear any noise, I can now hear it from 15 feet away.  Once a movie is playing, I doubt that I would be troubled by the noise but the perfectionist in me wants to eliminate it.

1518

General Software Discussion / Re: I may be the last one to learn about this, but...

« Last post by superboyac on October 05, 2012, 08:04 PM »

I know this news sucks, but isn't also probably true that someone like ad muncher will just implement windows 8 ad blocking features into their programs?  Also, same issue with the desktop/metro thing...wouldn't someone (rather quickly) create a program to default send the user to the desktop?  Just like how DOPus can replace your windows explorer?

(I'm not being sarcastic.)

1519

Living Room / Re: Audio Equipment -- (Spinoff thread)

« Last post by superboyac on October 05, 2012, 06:48 PM »

If Renegade is interested, here's my latest experiment with Reaper...

I just installed the latest Reaper...it's good.  I normally have used Cubase in the past, but I was a little curious today so I tried it out.  I am happy so far.  A lot easier to set up than Cubase.  Tiny download!  only 8MB.  Cubase is freaking huge (1-4GB, depending on options!!)  My vst's have worked with a lot less mystery than in cubase as far as setting everything up with the midi, inputs, outputs.  no lag, in fact, it is very snappy.  The interface is clean and pro.  I'm just going to record using this until i hit an obstacle.

So Renegade, I'm pretty happy with it right now, give it a shot.  I'm not sure what mouse things bothered you about it, but if you let me know, I'll try that out also.

1520

Living Room / Re: Barebone server: what else do I need to complete it?

« Last post by superboyac on October 04, 2012, 07:18 PM »

(A couple of cool pictures for myself), this is turning into my personal research thread!

1521

Living Room / Re: Barebone server: what else do I need to complete it?

« Last post by superboyac on October 04, 2012, 07:11 PM »

I was initially going to go for the XIII before I started this thread, since Addonics seemed to be the only company with any options along these lines.  I still like it, especially that it's narrow.  I'm guessing the Lian Li is better for airflow, so if that's available...I don't know.  Choices...

If I go for the modular approach, which I normally prefer...I can get a normal tower to hold the mobo, and one of these Addonics for just the drives.  I like that setup.  But you guys freaked me out about noise and heat!

So now I'm debating:
big fat Lian Li all-in-one
vs
Addonics XIII with 20-disk array, and separate tower

I'm leaning towards the latter.  I first want to check the fan setup on that tower, see how many, what size, etc.  More portable also.  You know, I'll call them about the noise issue.

1522

Living Room / Re: Barebone server: what else do I need to complete it?

« Last post by superboyac on October 04, 2012, 09:43 AM »

The Lian Li pc-d8000 has rubber washers around the screws holding the hard drives in place.  It's a good design, I like this company.

1523

General Software Discussion / Re: ringtones: a history?

« Last post by superboyac on October 03, 2012, 10:19 PM »

On second thought, it is a stupid idea.  It means you can only sell something one time.  Too idealistic.

1524

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: I'm practicing how to make films

« Last post by superboyac on October 03, 2012, 10:14 PM »

After following a fairly complex tutorial, this is a shiny logo I'm trying:


I need to clean it up to be perfect.  Ideally, this will be done in a 3D program.  Maybe Autocad.

1525

Living Room / Re: Barebone server: what else do I need to complete it?

« Last post by superboyac on October 03, 2012, 07:11 PM »

I wish granite digital made a 20-bay enclosure.