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Comment Life in terms of thermodynamics (Score 1) 185

"At the heart of England’s idea is the second law of thermodynamics, also known as the law of increasing entropy or the “arrow of time.”"

This is great, now somebody can easily go and model the economy thermodynamically. After all this should be a much simpler system.

Then again thinking about the second law feels like you can never come out ahead, introducing this concept to economics would be fatal to certain parts of the finance industry.

Comment DOS did it for me (Score 1) 606

At the time I switched to Linux I had only DOS which I regarded as inferior due to MS not supporting a flat memory model. MS started to support this in a credible way only with winnt in 1993, whereas they could have had something when the 386 came out in 1985. Given that they started in 1981 they had only four years of acquired customers but they managed somehow to respond to new hardware with a delay of eight years.

Once I had Linux running in '95 I also totally liked the grown up look X-Window had. Maybe you should tell your kids " ... and when you grow up I'll let you play with the big iron".

Comment Re:Why so much butthurt? (Score 1) 399

That, and lets not forget:
http://xkcd.com/386/
So here is my contribution to "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white! â" Justine Sacco"

There is this article I remember about British women increasing the chance of getting HIV by having unprotected sex in Africa:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/11/26/us-sextourism-idUSN2638979720071126

There is a clear potential for her being wrong about whiteness causing rational behaviour or something similar. While some might argue that often it is just easier to shut up, she could have rather said something like "I let the guys use condoms".

Comment Re:Yes... and no. (Score 2) 479

I wouldn't call my latex experience efficient by default, instead I call the result pretty and this is all that count's. Also it gives your resume a certain well recognized format, at least by the people in the same club. Why would you deal with Winword noobs.

Comment Re:I want a Geek Port! (Score 1) 128

You can build one yourself. Assume the BeBox geek port:

One "GeekPort" (37-pin D-shell)

        An experimental-electronic-development oriented port, backed by three fuses on the mainboard.
        Digital and analog I/O and DC power connector, 37-pin connector on the ISA bus.
        Two independent, bidirectional 8-bit ports
        Four A/D pins routing to a 12-bit A/D converter
        Four D/A pins connected to an independent 8-bit D/A converter
        Two signal ground reference pins
        Eleven power and ground pins:
                Two at +5 V, one at +12 V, one at -12 V, seven ground pins.

My current favourite are STM32 discovery boards, i.e.:
http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM116/SC959/SS1532/PF254044

(costs $10)

It even has a User USB port, you can use. Then you have to invest some time implementing the whole
communication chain to your PC. ST generally has a standard peripheral driver library that can help you
with all the stuff you can do with the chip in question.

Apart from the powersupply stuff the bebox offers, you will find everything else and more in the microcontroller.
If you want to build an external geekbox you would want to add a separate power supply. Then you could use the microcontrollers PWM outputs
to regulate some voltages for a power supply output, or use some dc/dc converters for fixed voltages.

From the top of my head I wouldn't know what to do with it though, but I do need a power supply unit, some measurement means, and some stimulation means for circuits.

Comment Re:Multilayer ceramic capacitors (Score 1) 136

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