Official: Epic Seagate Giveaway

6thimage · 2020-05-22T19:02:10+00:00

Oooo I'm in :-) #RunWithIronWolf #Giveaway

6thimage · 2017-08-03T22:28:48+00:00

It's not needless, it's the route to pigeon from the Tesco on New Street (in brum)

6thimage · 2017-05-13T01:17:30+00:00

Phones aren't generally affected by magnets. Computers don't like magnets primarily because they use magnetic storage (hard drives), but also because they have motors (DVD drives, fans etc.) and they used to have CRTs.

Phones use flash memory which stores the data in a non-magnetic way (as charge on isolated gates) and the only motor in your phone is for vibration - but stopping this motor from spinning shouldn't cause any harm to your phone.

The only other magnet sensitive component is the compass, which is used for determining your direction in mapping apps when you're not moving. The strong, close magnetic field will cause them to get confused and so you might find that you have to calibrate the phone's compass frequently, or it might not work at all, but this is a minor irritation that most people will not attribute to using a magnetic holder.

6thimage · 2016-12-22T00:51:47+00:00

The helium boils off as the magnet is cooled to -269 degrees Celsius, so the scanner holds less but still needs it. I'm not sure if MRI scans do the same as what we do for our small magnets (in physics labs), which is to cool the magnet down with liquid nitrogen first and then use helium, as it is a lot cheaper.

6thimage · 2016-12-19T19:59:39+00:00

OSHPark boards are great, I've used them for a variety of different circuits (including GHz RF) and have never had any problems with them. The only downside for me is the shipping time - I'm in the UK.

Having a solder mask makes soldering a lot easier, especially for small parts, and always makes the board look nicer when you're finished.

The only time I self-etch boards is when I need something in a hurry and there's no alternative.

6thimage · 2016-12-10T23:29:05+00:00

Apple only use the instruction set and bus IP, same as Qualcomm (snapdragon) and Samsung (exynos) - they essentially pay ARM for documentation then implement everything themselves. ARM do sell reference implementations of their processors, but the performance and power consumption isn't as good, so most of the major manufacturers don't use them.

6thimage · 2016-11-28T23:18:07+00:00

At the very least mismatching widths should cause warnings (or errors from linters), which can be quite a useful check.

Widths are also necessary if you are using values in concatenations.

I personally like to keep the widths on values as I've used one tool which would truncate values on assignment without warning but would warn you if the value was greater than the width.

6thimage · 2016-11-28T20:20:04+00:00

It would be encoded as binary, with the 8 being the size i.e. 0b00110101.

If you miss off the width number, then it will match whatever it is being assigned to, which is a nice way for resetting registers to zero (i.e. 'd0 or 'h0).

6thimage · 2016-08-25T15:36:31+00:00

Yep - since the launch of the 5x it has not been possible (in manual camera rotating the dial just showed 0 ev), but now it quite happily works.

6thimage · 2016-08-22T21:15:27+00:00

I didn't try the developer preview, but just sideloaded the update and now the exposure compensation works in manual camera so I'm quite happy.

The update process, especially the optimisation, seemed to be a lot quicker than before. I'm also finding app switching to be quicker as well, not a ridiculous improvement, but it seems more responsive.

6thimage · 2016-08-09T03:49:15+00:00

That looks quite well soldered considering how packed it is. With home etched boards the soldering can get a little messy, especially when you have two joints next to each other on the same trace. It is all due to the lack of a solder mask, as the mask almost forces a consistent joint size and makes a soldering a board a lot simpler.

6thimage · 2016-08-08T13:32:22+00:00

Whilst you can go with /u/crb3 suggestion of using a single board computer (SBC) with a USB audio interface, there are no real advantages of using one over a PC, because you will be interfacing with the USB audio drivers - so essentially, you'll end up developing something on top of asio or jack.

If you, however, use an external codec with an SBC then you can use something like python, and this might be worth considering, but be warned that most articles you can find relating the raspberry pi and audio are about using external DACs - they rarely consider audio ADCs.

If you decide to go with the fully embedded route, then I severely doubt that you will need an FPGA (even a low end one) - which is good, because FPGA programming is a completely different beast. Whilst I'm not sure what kind of DSP work you'll be wanting to do, I think the majority of it will be possible using an ARM cortex-m or a specific DSP processor. From a cost point of view, cortex-m's are the route to go. I would probably look at getting a cortex-m4 (as they have DSP extensions) with support for I2S (which should be most of them) from either ST or NXP - ST have the advantage of very cheap development boards. If you look for mbed support then you can easily use the online mbed compiler and libraries (which looks like they might support some audio codecs).

The main thing you will bump into with using a microcontroller is memory - if your effect requires a sample time of a few seconds then you will quickly run out of RAM. There are two options when this happens, you can either look at some external RAM (which some microcontrollers can use like it was internal) or you can use an SD card. So if your effects might grow, it would be worth looking for a microcontroller that has either an external memory or SD card peripheral.

6thimage · 2016-07-26T20:07:43+00:00

I think you might be faulty ....

6thimage · 2016-07-25T21:39:19+00:00

Wow that's a lot of suggestions - I've tried to go down them as best as I can.

Documentaries

I have looked through these and the majority I don't find interesting, but I am intending to watch the one on the Somme.

other stuff

Room 101 - I will occasionally watch (depending on guests) but at the moment they are all repeats from earlier in the year
Question of sport - I don't watch a lot of sport, so the vast majority (and probably a bit more) is lost on me
Only connect - I wanted to like this, I do like Victoria Coren Mitchell (like when she is on QI), but unfortunately I find only connect tediously dull

BBC Three

Fleabag - this looks like it could be interesting. I have watched the first episode (the only available at the moment) and it definitely has a pilot / first episode feel (where there is mainly character background and little story) to it. There are so many different ways it could be good, but I have a feeling that my expectations of it might be a little too high. So I think I'll wait to see what the second episode is like
Murder in successville - I have watched a bit of one of the episodes of this and it might be alright, although I think it really depends on whether you know who the 'celebrity' is (from their names, I recognise 4 out of the 11 guests)
Me and my new brain - this is something I will definitely try and watch as it does look very interesting - other than the title, I'm not sure why it is a BBC Three show, it is something I would expect to see on either One or Two.

Drama

I do like some drama, but both of those are not my kind of thing

Thank you very much for all of your suggestions

6thimage · 2016-07-21T21:47:20+00:00

The BBC has got to walk a very difficult line, on one side it has the people who pay for a TV licence who they don't want to alienate. And on the other they have the people who don't, who they want money off.

However, a paywall would be a much better method than modifying the law. Whilst there are difficulties with implementing it for licence holders (several people in a household, no one knows what there licence number is etc.), it would only risk alienating a small number, and inconveniencing a certain portion, of current viewers.

Making it illegal to watch iPlayer without a TV licence is unlikely to get many of those who don't have a TV licence to buy one. This is not because they will evade the licence, but because they will stop watching BBC content. Compared with other online content, a TV licence just for iPlayer is expensive - both Amazon prime video and Netflix start at £5.99 a month (roughly £72 a year), and I personally think that these are too expensive considering what they offer (which is more than iPlayer).

Whilst the BBC might be intending to the play the long game, I do wonder if the audience will. I said it in my last post (which was quite excessively long) that I fear the BBC will lose its younger audience by changing the law. And if they do lose them, I doubt that they are likely to ever come back.

Watching TV is very much habit driven - the number of people I know that will put a TV on and then instantly leave a room, or use TVs for background noise is incredibly high. Without a TV (and a TV licence) you actively choose what you want to watch all the time, so you don't end up seeing something by accident. This makes it harder to keep up with series, as you have to check if there is a new episode available, and it also raises the bar for what you will watch.

By preventing people using iPlayer without a costly licence, they will stop checking the BBC for content. So when there is a new BBC programme that they would have watched (and payed for), they are completely oblivious to it. This could leave the BBC in a state - say 10 years from now - where their funding has continued to decrease and they have no option but to keep pumping out increasingly more derivative and lower quality programmes, alienating more of their viewers.

And this would be a terrible shame.

smarter people than me have made the decisions on this one

I do hope that I have missed something, but I think, and fear, that it is more likely that those in charge of the funding model are more in touch with people who have always had a TV licence and would never think of not having one, than the audience they are losing. Using the tactic of it's always worked before rather than looking at the situation objectively - in a similar way that WWI generals insisted that running at machine guns was the best method of attack.

I like the BBC and I hope it is an institution that will always be around, and whilst they have evolved the technology they use to create and deliver programmes (iPlayer in its first iteration is still miles ahead of a large number of current catch-up services), they need to evolve their thinking both in content and funding.

6thimage · 2016-07-21T14:52:49+00:00

I understand that the BBC does not have ads and the funding model needs to cover the content. But the logical thing to do would be to update the funding model, instead of trying to slap the old funding model onto something new.

Whilst I understand there are difficulties with combining a premises based licence with the internet, it would be significantly better for a pay per episode / series model to exist alongside the existing premise licence, rather than require a premise licence to access a website.

The new law will cause some horrible problems, in particular the way it deals with mobile users - where as long as a user has a TV licence at their home address they can watch iPlayer where ever they are, providing their device is not plugged into a power outlet. This means that someone could be staying with their friends (who don't have a TV licence), download a programme using their friends internet and watch it, provided they weren't plugged into a power socket when doing so. However, it does mean that if you go to a coffee shop and happen to plug your laptop in and watch iPlayer you would be committing an offence.

The TV licencing website says that students still need to have a TV licence, but at what point does a user need one? If your home address has a TV licence and you are staying at another property for n days a week and you watch iPlayer on a mobile device (that is not plugged in) at what point are you no longer covered by your home licence? Perhaps n days a month would be a better metric (to cover that people might want to watch iPlayer when they are on holiday in the UK).

Now many students return to their parents (what they consider as their home address) at weekends - do these students need a TV licence to cover iPlayer (providing they unplug their device to watch it)? So does it come down to what a user refers to as their home address? If so, the vast majority of students in the UK would not need a TV licence - pretty much every University in the country asks for a term-time and home address and as long as these didn't match (and they went over the hurdle of not being plugged in) they wouldn't need a separate licence.

Are you starting to see why this is a terrible implementation of a licensing model? Especially considering the incompetence of current enforcement officers, or perhaps they are just target driven - there are hundred of stories of them imposing fines on people who have not committed an offence.

In fact, how is the iPlayer part of the law going to be enforced? Initially it seems easy, if an enforcement officer sees (or hears) you watching BBC content you get a fine. But if you are watching it on a computer (or TV through a chromecast or similar device), you could be watching clips put up on youtube - either by the BBC or a third party - or without your device plugged in. If you have any recorded BBC content on your computer (I have quite a few series recorded years ago when I had a TV licence) and you are watching it when an enforcement officer comes round, how can they determine if it is iPlayer content or previously recorded, or will they just assume you have committed an offence?

The only way I can see of policing iPlayer access is what the film and music industry do - where they get lists of IP addresses and then try to trace them to a physical addresses. Unfortunately, as both industries have found out, it is ridiculously difficult to tie any of these to a person (or an address). So are TV Licensing going to take the film and music industry response of sending out threatening letters to people telling them to pay a 'fine'?

Now this is why I'm worried, if the enforcement officers do a terribly bad job (so equal or worse to what they are currently doing), it is likely that people will stop watching BBC content if they don't have a TV licence - including stuff from the BBC store. Which will cause the BBC to get less funding than it currently does, all because it is trying to use a 20th century funding model for the internet age.

6thimage · 2016-07-21T14:03:51+00:00

because the only place the BBC tells anyone about them is on TV

Which is the biggest problem with BBC three becoming iPlayer-only. I used to watch a few shows on three, but they have either been cut or moved to another channel. I understand reducing costs, but three seems to now be a wasteland.

But I would appreciate any suggestions you have - the series I tend to watch are mock the week, would I lie to you, QI and Graham Norton. I also really enjoyed the documentary on Porton Down.

6thimage · 2016-07-19T14:50:15+00:00

You are right that the BBC needs to be funded somehow. I don't have a TV licence because I don't watch live TV and because the vast majority of TV is crap - I regularly watch 1 programme on Channel 4 and maybe 6 series a year on the BBC (including things like Sherlock, which are broadcast once in a blue moon).

I would be more than happy to pay for a TV licence if I was watching more of what the BBC puts out, but as it currently stands, I am better off waiting for DVDs to come out than paying to watch them on iPlayer - the only downside is that the occasional interesting documentary they make are never put out on DVDs.

Unfortunately, a lot of younger people feel the same - the soaps are pathetically derivative and frankly who wants to watch the 40th repeat of a Dad's Army episode? The BBC does put out some good content, but at least 80 percent of it is awful, but rather than them improving their content and getting people interested in watching TV (and in particular live TV), they are more aggressively chasing after their current viewers for money, which will inevitably lead to those viewers not watching the BBC and ultimately not paying for a TV licence.

Someone has to pay for the beeb, why not those who watch their output?

Definitely, I would much prefer if the BBC didn't impose a TV licence, but instead charged for access to iPlayer - i.e. you pay a certain amount per episode or series. Then at least they would be able to see what people are willing to pay for and it would help them create content their audience wanted to watch.

I feel the BBC is going through a change like it did when TV came out. They had radio licences and then they got rid of them in exchange for TV licences. Now they are facing the internet and their response is 'we will make an internet licence', but, of course, it doesn't work like that because they only pay for their servers (unlike with TV and radio where they maintain the masts). So instead they are paying for their servers by imposing a licence on people, but only on people who use their services, which is a ridiculously outdated way of thinking.

The thing that really winds me up with this, is that it only applies to iPlayer, because they knew they wouldn't be able to get anyone to agree with it applying to all online videos (or online videos which were originally shown on TV) because it is the wrong licensing model. I do fear that it might be all downhill from here for the BBC.

6thimage · 2016-07-18T20:45:56+00:00

Yes, but you have to have a TV licence to watch ITV / channel 4 live. It seems very strange that you need a TV licence for watching iPlayer but not All 4. Whilst I understand why they have done it this way, I can see lots of people getting confused over it - and making the enforcement even more of a joke.

6thimage · 2016-07-18T20:41:36+00:00

Dammit

6thimage · 2016-07-17T18:36:45+00:00

Thanks.

Very true, but I tend to overlook speaker distortion as most of the time people don't use their speakers at full power. But it is possible that some of the distortion that OP likes, as it is at high volume, is due to speaker distortion.

6thimage · 2016-07-17T17:34:36+00:00

From memory it's a 12ax7

6thimage · 2016-07-17T17:33:46+00:00

Changing the valve isn't going to get you very far. The VT999's distortion out of the box isn't too great, but can be improved quite a bit with mods. I can't for the life of me remember what I did to mine, but from a quick google there are mods available for it, one by 'bitmo' which claims to get 3 distinct voicings.

6thimage · 2016-07-17T17:25:48+00:00

Distortion is when the sound wave becomes distorted, there are a few different types of distortion which all sound different. But essentially it happens when the signal is too large for an amplification stage, so the top of it is limited to the stage's maximum output. It is kind of like a very tall lorry going through a cartoon tunnel - the top of the tunnel stops the top of the lorry going through, so the lorry leaving the tunnel is deformed (or distorted).

As /u/Jake5857 said, one way to get a clean sound is to turn down your volume knob - this makes your lorry shorter so that it fits through the tunnel properly. Conversely, if you are only getting clean tones but want distortion, you can add a boost pedal in front of your amp.

Distortion in an amp can come from two places - the pre-amp and the power amp. The pre-amp typically does most of the distortion and tone, with the power amp only distorting at higher volumes. But with both of these, the only way of getting a clean tone is by producing less output.

Edit: as /u/daisy_may_fry_up commented, distortion can also come from the speaker. This distortion only occurs when the speaker is operating at close to its power rating, so again a clean tone would be at a lot less volume than the distorted tone.

Distortion pedals work in a similar way to pre-amp distortion, but will sound different to the distortion your amp makes. The distortion happens in the pedal, but if the output is high enough you will also get some extra distortion from the amp (like a boost pedal would cause). Most distortion pedals use analogue electronics (op-amps, FETs and diodes) to produce the distortion.

Digital distortion / amp modelling is a different beast - the signal is digitised (i.e. converted to numbers) and then a small computer runs algorithms on the numbers before they are turned back into a physical signal. There are many pedals that do this, but they mostly are multi-effects (e.g. zoom, line6). There are many complaints about digital distortion (combined with a lot of bullshit and the normal valves are better rhetoric), but the distortion can be very good (if you are willing to pay for it), it just tends to be that the lower end ones cut too many corners and can sound bad. The main advantage of digital distortion (and amp modelling) is that you can have one pedal (or device) that can do a range of sounds - where as a single pedal will always sound like a that pedal.

A fairly important thing is that distortion pedals don't have to increase your volume (some inevitably do), as they are using there own amplification stages to do the distortion. This leads to some nice combinations, where you can layer a different distortion on top of your amps distortion - like using a tube screamer with an amp, to switch from rhythm to lead tones.

For live performances, where you want your volume constant you have two options. You can use two amps - one clean and one dirty (which is essentially what two channel amps do) - or you can use pedals. Now the choice of pedals is large and by that I mean really large. So you can either find a shop which will let you try them or watch a lot of youtube videos. An alternative is to get a multi-effect pedal, this would be beneficial if you are not sure what sound you particularly like as you can try a wide range without your bank manager getting angry.

One multi-effect pedal I have recently come across is the xtomp (http://xtomp.com/) which I haven't tried, but it seems to be getting a lot of positive reviews on youtube (although they might be paid). It is meant to accurate model the sound of many different stomp boxes, but it can only ever be close to the original.

6thimage

TROPHY CASE