Interestingly, I’ve got two setups which are both class D. A Wadia power DAC, with analog REL sub and dynaudio speakers, the other is a set of Vanatoo transparent one digital monitors. To be fair, the vanatoo are 95% as good for about 20% of the price.

I also agree that the majority of the hifi literature is bullshit, and the above article on the iphone 5 dac is a good example. Quantitative measurements, but nothing to compare them with.

Hmm, small boot? I thought it was massive, but I’m currently driving a Golf GTI…

Another alternative is the Q7 with the same engine. I imagine that it won’t be quite so fun to drive though, as it seems a fair bit bigger.

Was planning on a newish model – maybe a couple of years old. Here we get a choice of 3.6 VR6 petrol engine (280bhp/266lb-ft) or the 3.0 TDI (240bhp/406lb-ft). All of that torque makes a big difference in such a heavy car.

“Regular gas” is around $1 per liter around here, and diesel about the same. Not expensive, but at the same time, I wouldn’t go buying something that won’t get more than 20mpg.

I’ve heard horror stories about the mk 1, but hopefully the new one is better…

A quick google shows that SRAM make 38 and 40T retainer rings for GXP and BB30:

http://www.jensonusa.com/Chainrings?s=&o=15454&o=11000

A better e-cig may do the trick, what are you using now? I found that it was easy to quit smoking when I found an acceptable substitute. Better, more powerful vaporizers give a much more satisfying experience, and eliminate (in my experience) the desire to go back to the cigs. I’d recommend an IPV mini 2, with a Kanger Subtank Mini, or Aspire Atlantis 2. Vape something nice and fruity at 25W and you’re golden.

Interesting stuff. Would love a build similar to MrGFisher’s, but the finances would not stand it…

Not sure I’d want to get rid of the alpine to fund it. I hope to get a decent amount of riding in over the summer when the local bike park is open.

Decisions, decisions…

Thanks guys. I was wondering if the bike had lost the famous “big BMX” handling now it has 650b wheels. At the same time, I’d also like to be able to ride it for several hours without being battered.

andysredmini – I’d probably just pick up the standard US build (not sure of the name, but the better one with pike, SLX/XT etc). Quite a bargain at around $2400. I’d actually prefer a 26″ bike, but it’s impossible over here now. Even getting a decent fun-bike 27.5″ hardtail is difficult – either they’re BSOs, tiny or XC race bikes.

MrGFisher – Nice build: how is the tyre clearance? Would it be possible to get a 2.5 on there with a wide rim? Do you have an idea of the weight?

Bump…

Raceface SixC are available in 35mm rise with 785mm width and are rather lovely. Also, they do 1.5″ (38mm?) rise alu bars if you can restrain your tartiness.

…one bike is not going to start a race. Two bikes will.

So much this. Groups of riders, money and racing are essential to the technological advancement and development of the sport. Without Charlie and his mates popularising the sport, there would be no money in making frames, components and so on. Therefore, no modern suspension, modern disc brakes, dropper posts, triple compound tyres etc etc.

Tomorrow, I’ll be going to the bike park. I’ll be riding my fancy bike with a dropper post, tubeless tyres, long travel suspension, disc brakes etc. Without Charlie and the other guys in Marin in the ’70s, this would not be possible. Not only the bike, but also the bike park with chairlifts and built trails. It’s the popularity of the sport that makes these things possible, even if (like the chairlifts and built trails) they would be physically possible without large scale participation – it would make no business sense to do so, and would almost certainly not happen otherwise.

So what was invented in Marin in the ’70s? It wasn’t the mountain bike (in the sense of a purpose built off-road bike), or mountain biking (the act of using such a bike). However, “mountain biking” in the sense of the culture, development of technology, mass participation, organised racing and so on did spring from that time and place IMO.

A good analogy in my mind is the invention of the computer – Babbage, Turing, Zuse etc. It’s fairly meaningless to attribute “invention” of it to one person or group of people. On the other hand, there are clearly significant milestones along the way to what we see now. In fact, I think you can easily see Charlie as Steve Wozniak, and Mike Sinyard as Steve Jobs…

Cheers Charlie, some of us see you (and your friends) as pioneers in the field in which I choose to spend my free time…

Knowing a decent amount about the general topic, I’m amazed at the level of knowledge on here. I have a couple of points: Second hand passive components are almost always worthless, that goes double if found in a skip. Testing, disassembling etc is always possible, but would be more expensive than buying new stuff from Thorlabs. A mode coupler is actually a pretty good suggestion, I’m not sure that you can get more distance from MMF fibre plant though – loss/km is pretty high for MMF, while the coupling loss going back to SMF can be massive (depending on the number of supported modes). I thought that the idea was more using SMF transceivers on installed MMF plant.

Also, I have a question: How can you tell the difference between LC and FC from a distance? Same goes for the difference between SC and FC?

Anyway, value of optics ~= 0.

I think the real point here is not the assets and liabilities (reserves and debts) of the UK, but the control of the central bank (Bank of England).

The two key aspects of “the pound” that the SNP are keen to keep as part of the BOE are: acting as lender of last resort (bailing out RBS, HBOS etc.), and the control of interest rates via the monetary policy committee. Unfortunately, the BOE is the central bank of the UK. You can’t divide it up: it’s mandate is to act in the best interests of the UK as a whole, not some population weighted average of England, Wales, Scotland and NI.

It would be feasible (IMO, but I’m not an expert) to divide up BOE reserves and UK government debt after independence, Scotland could start their own central bank and control their own monetary policy. An agreement to amend the fundamental mandate of the central bank to act in the best interests of not just the UK, but also Scotland is another thing entirely though. How would it even work? Would there be a population weighting for the relative harm or benefit of changing rates etc?

Eurgh… avoid Staly Vegas unless your kind of night out is 10 pints a curry and a fight. It reminds me of Ashton 15 years ago – when Ashton was a real sht-hole…

Denton and Hyde are both horrific, I would avoid east Manchester like the plague. Nicest places in that direction are Glossop and Hadfield, which are neither nice nor close…

I live in Boston and use Logan regularly. 1:40 might be cutting it fine, but you should be okay. The longest I’ve spent getting through immigration there is 3 hours…

Seems to be much worse late at night or at the weekend. For a really quick immigration experience, fly via Ireland and get it over with in Shannon/Dublin. It does mean flying with Aer Lingus though, who are the Ryan Air of long haul flights…

Proper meat pies. I’ve thought of importing them myself, would gladly pay 20 USD for one from Waterfields.

mmmmmm

I think we have a winner…

Am using it right now in the US. The improvement in both speed and latency is massive compared with my experiences of UK 3G. The flip side is that for my unlimited data contract I pay something like 60 quid a month. Also, trying to have it as my only source of internet I’ve the last few weeks has been frustrating: speed is highly dependent on both reception and time of day, which can make anything other than email and light web browsing impossible.

Your journalism masters isn’t useful, so you fancy getting one in English? Sounds like a waste of money to me…

In general though, even with relatively useless degrees, go to the best place you can get into. In London, I’d go for LSE or UCL. Otherwise, consider commuting to Cambridge or possibly Oxford.

Having said that, I think you’d be better doing something else.

Mmm…

Nothing wrong with using that for steaks, but in my opinion you should try a rib eye roast: good fat to flesh ratio and is oh-so-tender while being a good flavour and faster and easier to cook than a forerib.

Best way to buy global knives is to look at the sets of 3 for around 120. Lots of different sets too. Just make sure you have somewhere to store them properly.

Slightly tangential here, but why do you need a square wave? It has infinite bandwidth and can therefore never be generated perfectly, a good square wave will require lots of bandwidth (compared to the period of the wave).

Do you just need an edge?

Regardless, I’d be looking in RS, Maplin etc. for a cheap signal generator and oscilloscope. Unless you have ages to spend getting your hands dirty there is most likely no point in trying to build one for yourself.

12V peak to peak is a hell of a lot of power though (at least into a standard 50 Ohm load which is what most test equipment is designed for). You may well need an amplifier to get that amount of power, which would probably need to be linear-ish to get you a decent square wave. Do you know what kind of a load you are driving?

Also, to measure the response of your system, you will need either an equivalent time scope (cheapish), a real-time scope (more expensive) or some kind of spectrum analyser (in the middle). Difficult to know what to recommend without knowing the details of what you want to measure.

One problem you will have is that the lowest specced test equipment at the minute will have MHz of bandwidth. Getting down to the 100Hz range might be a big fiddle.

I remember hearing that a significant inspiration was actually the troggs, this is both real and actual genius:

To be honest, pretty much all of that other than the maths books would be of historical interest only. The transistor books were written within 15 years of it’s invention: we now have another 50 years of knowledge.

Been a while since I studied the first incompleteness theorem, but as I understand it:

A “formal language”, or “logical system” consists of:

– An algebra: i.e. operators with predefined meaning (addition, multiplication etc).
– A set of axiomatic statements which must be self consistent (i.e. no contradictions), and not derivable from the other axioms.

Statements are then made which are consistent with the algebra, and may be shown to be consistent with the axioms (true) or in contradiction (false). There are also statements which may be made that may not be proven or disproven (e.g., if one axiom is removed and treated as a statement, it cannot be proven or disproven).

Therefore if we find a statement which is true and cannot be proven, we can simply make it an axiom.

Goedel’s first incompleteness theorem states that there are true statements which cannot be proven in any system with a finite set of axioms.

The proof is one of the best, counterintuitive and horrifically complicated bits of maths I’ve ever come across. It involves metamathematics and Peano arithmetic and amazingly is published entirely on wikipedia here.

Goedel’s incompleteness theorem is about the incompleteness of formal logic: in a formal logical system there are always statements which are true, but cannot be proven (unlike axioms, which are considered to be axiomatically true). [/pedantry]

These type of maths problems are complete BS in my opinion: it would be obvious to anybody written down, but people interpret them differently verbally.

Problem you have is that the rarer the book, the smaller the audience and the less likely it is to sell. Also, with EE books tend to go out of date fairly rapidly. Looking at the dozen or so books on my shelf, only 1 is more than 20 years old and thats a very general maths book. Typically, the more specialised the book, the faster it’s out of date (unless they’re on a topic that doesn’t really change much like maths or physics).

Ebay is probably the best bet. If any of the books are out of print then Amazon might be a good bet too.

I love my mac and use it 8-12 hours a day, I’ll probably be buying a couple more before the end of the year too.

That said, they’re a total rip-off.

If you “need” either the OS or the smallness of the MBA, then I reckon it can be (just about) justified. It’s also much easier to justify when somebody else is paying.

Best guess, maybe the HDD overheating? Corrupted disk or some particularly write-happy software? These things can sound surprising sometimes.

Alternatively, chuck it and buy a new shiny one…

Did you put your home address in your profile?

Also, this is more true than you can possibly imagine…

As Gary said, it’s about results rather than hours. As someone who has recently finished in a somewhat related field, I think that simulation work is both a blessing and a curse. You could easily work 9-5, or any other hours that you fancy. While 9-5 is probably sufficient for getting a PhD, getting a decent number of publications in good journals will almost certainly take longer than that (IME), I averaged between 50 and 60 hours per week but never started work before 10:30am.

Enjoy your research is the best advice that I can give you, and don’t get too stuck in your tiny N-th degree stratification. Other adjacent problems can be interesting too, and give you a lot of insight to your own work (this is particularly true in SSP and ML: look at a wide variety of applications, not just in CS and what your supervisor gives you).

Lastly, please don’t get sucked into all the “”being a millionaire in the city” BS: the jobs are largely boring and the pay isn’t that great. Some fantastic ML type jobs are coming up in “massive data” type apps, interesting work with good companies and good pay: I (fairly) often wish I’d done a PhD in ML myself.

Choron

Hmmm, interesting stuff.

Seems that the filter is itself linear, but has a circulariser afterwards (i.e. not a circular filter). The autofocus components in modern cameras rely on angled partial mirrors which are themselves (partially) linearly polarising. Without the circulariser, the relative orientation of the polarising filter and the mirrors in the AF determines how much light gets into the meters, and the exposure can be set incorrectly.

Nice explanation here.

Possibly an idiot question, but…

Why would you need a circularly polarising filter on a camera? Glare is (partially) linearly polarised, no?

New s-works enduro is under 26lbs: click-click[/url]. Wonder if a mincer like matt hunter finds it’s too weak…

…they will really help to improve your times, especially if you race them. They’ve not been raced, …

Genius…

Yup, that’s how my Hope setup is assembled. Just make sure that everything is seated properly and the seals should do their job nicely. The stack height is slightly more than a tapered setup (and not quite as neat), but it seems to do the job perfectly well in practise.

On my Hope setup, the reducer bush sits on the crown, and the 1.5 race sits on the bush. Plenty strong and stiff on my AM bike, never had any problems with it.

I have to say that I’m in full agreement with Cougar on the idea of exponential bans for trolling and over-arguing.

As I’m also teh awesums with algorithms I suggest using base pi, so from first to tenth ban you would have (approximately):

1 day
3 days
10 days
1 month
3 months
10 months
2 years 6 months
8 years
25 years
80 years

I reckon some of the big-arguers on here just spent too much time here, and a month doesn’t enable them to reengage with the real world. Exponential bans give a better idea to people that they’re on thin ice and need to self-moderate their behaviour if they want to remain.

What happened there? I had an amazing picture of a guy with a massive margaret thatcher tattoo, is that you?