Integration

Where’s my food from?

larry — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 03:04:17 +0000

I want to know. For unprocessed foods (raw meat and produce), the label or sticker should have the name and address of the farm it was produced on. I would pay a little more for a product if I knew I could get in the car and go see the farm it came from. Would you?

Calculus Fallibility Theorem

larry — Mon, 09 May 2011 00:27:03 +0000

Calculus fails on discontinuous functions. Discontinuities exists in our measurements of reality. Therefore calculus is fallible when applied to reality. QED.

Thankfully, discontinuities aren’t all that common when you consider all the shit that does work according to our calculations.

CPU Frequency Scaling

larry — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 18:37:58 +0000

I compiled my own kernel for the first time since high school last night. And it felt good. And now, I have CPU Frequency Scaling working. I probably could have made it work before because it looked like everything was built as modules, but I never got around to figuring out what I needed to load. So, I just built in what I knew I needed. The kernel compile took 3:18 (3 minutes) on the stock kernel, and running the build again using the new kernel was slightly slower at 3:48. If I get time, I’d like to see if I can get that down… although I would need to save the specific configuration to have a meaningful comparison. However, as long as the build time is going down I should be approaching faster, because if it’s due to less things being compiled the kernel will be leaner. A leaner kernel leaves more precious CPU cache for the processes. Of course, modules break this theory in that removing the compilation of unneeded modules speeds up the compile without speeding things up at all.

Anyway, back to frequency scaling. My CPU supports 4 frequencies, 800 MHz, 2.2, 2.7, 3.4 GHz. And each core can me set independently. Sweet. It turns out that when all 4 cores are at 800 MHz, I get an audible buzz that is rather annoying. Shame on you AMD. Setting any one of the processors to the next higher frequency eliminates the problem, but I want to use the ondemand governor. What ondemand does is increase the frequency when the CPU load is high. I think it can even skip for example from 800 MHz to straight to 3.4 if it detects the load rising quickly enough. Well, it turns out that I can set a minimum frequency per core. So, by running

sudo su -c ‘echo 2200000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu3/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq’

I set the minimum frequency to 2.2 GHz on the fourth CPU. So now I’ve got 3 at 800 MHz and one at 2.2 GHz. No whiny processors, and much power savings over 4 cores blasting noops at 3.4*10^9 times per second. Not the ideal of replacing 4.25 noops with 1, because of AMD’s failure to thoroughly test the acoustic consequences of their design, but still we are reducing 2.96 to 1 at idle.

Circular Logic

larry — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 19:30:34 +0000

Ask a logician about circular logic and they will tell you it is a fallacy. But, to me, this is an oversimplification. It holds as a fallacy when used in isolation, but when there are feedback loops, circular logic can indeed be used to produce matter from the illusions created by circular logic, or circular reasoning as Wikipedia calls it. Of course, the logicians are right in that circular logic is illusory, but that does not make it useless. Math has imaginary numbers already, why not formalize imaginary logical structures? Society has been running off half baked theories that are consistently revised since we started chasing our crazy half baked ideas. And it has clearly led to great advances. But, knowing that today’s brilliant idea will be tomorrows useful, but discarded broken theory, shouldn’t we attempt to understand the phenomenon? There are small errors in everything, and engineers design by just allowing enough tolerance. But knowing how much tolerance is needed is considered an art, and many would argue it can’t really be a hard science. If you look at Gödel’s work with the glasses of illusions as false, they have a point. Any theory consistent with existing theories will not “complete” (finish, as in “we’ve solved it, there are no more theories”) all the theories, as long as the set of theories is past a certain level of complexity. And that level of complexity exists everywhere. Out best hope is to predict as much as we can, and if a hurricane hits or lightening strikes, all bets are off. Butterflies are flapping their wings all the time. Sure, what we know works 99.999% of the time, but that’s still 1.33 days a year. Luckily, there’s a lot of things with even higher reliability, but machines breaking and needing repaired, or rebooted is common. 99.99999…% wears out pretty quickly when a processor is operating at 3 GHz (3,000,000,000 operations per second), or 94,670,208,000,000,000 in a year. That’s right, 94 quadrillion times. To get that down to 2.59 failures per day you need 99.9999999999999% reliability. I think you get the point. However, when Gödel’s work is looked at with consideration of the power of shared illusions, and his proof that there will always be a true statement that can not be proved, one can see a justification for accepting the premise of circular logic in a limited capacity. Much theory is fairly secure in predicting results, but theories are just that, theories. Sure, they all break down at some point, but when the illusion fails, the products of the illusion still remain.

Fire as heat + electricity

larry — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 18:42:47 +0000

What we need is more efficient natural gas usage in the home, used for primarily for heating air/water, and cooking. Possibly even generating electricity. If there was a burner turning a steam turbine for electricity, the used steam could be used to heat water on the return to the boiler. The water could provide hot water for showers, and also heating in the winter… mini radiator + fan at air ducts. Of course, you have to be sure the plumbing can handle the extra flow of water needed to heat the air. Good insulation on hot water pipes would be critical.

Of course, this would work just as well with any heat source, as long as it can boil enough water. We want to maximize fuel BTUs but minimize cost and environmental impact. We can also experiment with other forms of “steam.” All liquids expand as they evaporate… For example, alcohol would evaporate at a lower temperature, requiring less heat to get things moving. However, we would have to consider the mass density of the vapor. We want to use whatever fluid -> vapor expands the most for the BTU level we will have, while also meeting any requirements for minimum temperature. For example, if all of the data centers used water cooling, they could reduce the energy usage from all those fans to one water pump per rack, and that hot water could evaporate alcohol (or something else) to run a small steam engine to turn a generator. By recouping the heat energy, you may even be able to power the pump, effectively neutralizing your cooling costs.

Also, recovering the heat from cooling devices (think freezers and ACs) would not only recover some electricity, but in the case of a freezer, could lower the load on the AC in the summer.
If it turns out that water (or something with an even higher vaporization point) is the best material, a natural gas flame could “finish” the material to the right temperature in a boiler. Anyway, it seems like it may be better than what we’re doing now. Just an interesting idea I would love to see it work.

First post this year!

larry — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:40:59 +0000

It’s kinda sad when my first post this year is in August, but oh well. No one reads this but me anyway. Life has been it’s usual whirlwind, but at least I’m getting plenty of fresh air! My studies of Yoga and Auyerveda have been progressing nicely. As usual, I want to use my new knowledge to save the world, but I understand that it will take time to develop the experience to work with my new knowledge. Slowly, I have had more people come to me and ask me for advice. I try not to offer it where it isn’t requested because it would fall on deaf ears, and may even create an aversion to the proper means of healing, not to mention what I know at this point is very limited. But, as I am asked to face more and more, I gain more experience, and I gain confidence in the methods when I see them work. I just bought a bunch of herbs from takeherb.com to help me with my own bodily challenges, as well as those challenges others have asked me to aid them with. It was just last night, so it will be a week or so before I have them. Anyway, I’ll try to be a little more prudent about posting. If there is actually anyone listening, feel free to leave a comment and/or question. I will be much more vigilant about keeping this site updated if I know my words aren’t just flying off into the ether unheard.

Software and religion

larry — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 05:08:13 +0000

Actually, Linux would be related closer to “pagan” or polytheistic religions. We believe in multiple gods (software authors), although there is a high deity (Linus) who created the universe (Linux) where the rest reside. Some of the other deities work not only in his universe, but in others as well (other *nix’s, and even Windows).The gods are kind and benevolent. Not only do they bestow their gifts upon us (software), but they show us the way (source) so we can ascend to their level.Not only do they welcome ascension, but the know that no being, god or mortal, is without flaw. They listen when we say there is a problem (bug report) and accept our suggestions (patches) to make the universe better.

Praise be to the gods and goddesses.

And to you, on the cusp of the celebration of the Winter Solstice, I wish you and yours the best. May we help educate the nonbelievers (monotheistic computer followers) into seeing the light (the world which is *nix).

Stolen from a JWSmythe’s Slashdot comment

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making a claim about religion. I’m just saying we shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket when it comes to our software.

OSS 1, Proprietary 0

larry — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:26:14 +0000

http://www.gnome.org/~federico/news-2009-12.html#a-note-about-hackfests

Programming!!

larry — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:25:57 +0000

I did some programming today for the first time in a while. I spruced up yrral.net. Now instead of the null sign, we have a nice, blue face… hooray for wz’s jsGraphics

Ayurveda

larry — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:17:05 +0000

So I’ve been reading a lot lately… mostly Dr. David Frawley on Ayuerveda and Yoga. I highly recommend his books… Ayurvedic Healing is a great place to start if anyone is interested.

What is Ayurveda you ask? Ayurveda is the traditional medical system of India and other similar cultures. It is a way of viewing the body and it’s processes that aids in understanding and healing the root causes of any diseases or discomforts. It describes the five elements of earth, water, fire, air, and ether and explains how each of them plays it’s role in the formation and functioning of our bodies. Fire, for instance, is present in the body as digestion. While there are no flames, acids and enzymes are used to heat up our food in order to break its chemical bonds. I have read a lot, but I’m still very new to the subject. I find it to be a very interesting view of the workings of the body that could prove to be quite a powerful contribution to modern medicine.