20080615
Dreams in Digital - Click!
June is the one year anniversary of the thrid greatest project I have ever completed. (The first greatest was obtaining my Eagle Scout. The second greatest was graduating college.)I still have plans for this machine. I am personally holding off any Linux upgrade until Fedora 10 comes around. (It would be so much easier if instead of every 6 months, the people at Red Hat released a new distro every year instead. On the other hand, I should really consider installing software from source code rather than waiting for binaries.)
One plan that sounds affordable for right now is a fan too cool down the hard drive. If the nuclear energy supporters want to make environmentalists happy, they would us a really fast graphics card to generate steam for electricity. Then again, what would they need to use to generate the electricity for the really hot graphics card? Reguardless, the part of the computer that I forsee will be the cause of its downfall is the graphics card. Remember, if your GPU is spiking around 65 degrees Celcius, your main fan is probably broken, or your graphics card is too hot! The print on the wires generally states that their is a heat limit of about 70 degrees C. The normal for the GPU should be around 60 degrees C or less, otherwise everything is going to get hot, slow, or worse break down. I believe that is what happened to the main fan a few months ago. The GPU literally cooked the wires. While their was no puddle of plastic goop in my machine, the insulation that kept the wires from burning up could not protect the wire from the relatively intense heat.
Until I can afford a really nice graphics card, I will try my best to keep the rest of the computer as cool as possible. The fan and raidator on the CPU keep the CPU coool. The main fan aswell as a couple other case fans keep the MoBo and the memory in good order. And I have a new fan that will keep the hard drive cool which was remarkably affordable.
Also on my honey-do list for the computer: replacing the DVD-R/W. This like the GPU is currently a short-term long-term goal. As I have previously stated, I am hoping that a Linux standard for Blu-Ray R/W comes out in the near future and that prices for Blu-Ray drop within the next year. I went to Office Max the other day and saw that a single Blu-Ray disc for Blu-Ray R/W was $20.00. You want to know how much that disc is really worth? About a nickel. That's SONY for you.
Another short-term long-term goal would be to add an infrared controller to the computer. I don't care much for Bluetooth. And secondly, why does SONY use Bluetooth for their controllers and remotes in the first place? Bluetooth has many security concerns, and since it is pretty logical to use the wireless peripheral that interfaces with the computer in the same room, Infrared makes more sense.
Now if you really want to use Bluetooth for something, how about this next project that is definletely long-term long-term. Because Bluetooth can be used in say the next room over, why not create a Bluetooth device for your apartment that aquires free-to-air satilite television to be piped in to your house.
Now I hear some of you say "But Bushido, we can get this from DirecTV or Dish Network." True, but what they are as well as the cable companies are are middlemen between the satilite from space to your house. And if you noticed in your house if you have cable, the signal from your TV that is directly hooked up to your TV rather than a cable box does not have a delay. Likewise, this is the problems with the satilite TV companies. Because they get their feeds from various satilites then bounce the signals back up into space and into your backyard, this delay is much longer. The critism with such a project is that the dish used would be about 3 feet to 6 feet large, or maybe larger. The fact is we have come a long way from the 1980s when my grandpa had this piece of what was then considered high tech equipment in his house. We now have DVB which allows for us to watch TV on cellphones. The truth is, we could probably watch that for free if the big telecom companies didn't charge to do what the satilite TV companies do. And if you think about it, why do you think the Cable company is like "don't swith to satilite" and the satilite TV companies are like "switch to us from cable". It is because both the cable and satilite companies use the same signal equipment to fetch TV signal using thier 30 year old 12 footh satilite dishes. Cable does not go out in a rain storm because they use the satilite dishes that are tuned to the frequencies that can penetrate the toughest rain cloud. This technology is portable to Linux under ITU DVB-S standards.
But why stop at just TV? Shortwave and Amatuer radio could also be combined. This is a little more compilcated as many people know about the size of the amatuer radio and CB radio antennas. What I don't understand is why satilite radio has a small antenna. There is some information about amatuer radio at this link. And don't forget the Internet!
Next question is how do we power this device? In this age with gas price through the roof and people starting to wise up to solar and wind power I was thinking about something that would power the device, but at the same time be grounded from lightening strikes. The grounding mechanism would also be required for the dish as well as the amatuer radio, assuming that there is no way to talke that out of the equation. A Big-Ugly-Dish (BUD) with solar pannels built into it would be perfect, but physics doesn't work that way. I saw on 60 minutes one time BUDs are still used in Iran as a way to override their government's TV broadcasting.
The idea is really good and very smart. It may be the satilite/cable/ISP-company-in-a-box, but first I would condiser the cost and make certain that the telcoms and the satillite/cable compaies don't foil my idea. I do like the idea. It is the most straightforward plan. But their would be some programming involved like telling where to point the dish and the solar-pannels (if any). Generally they point south, but for the first time use, or the poor soul who nevery used a compass in the Boy Scouts (or Girls Scouts). The prototype will necessarily be boatanchor size even though technology can get smaller and maller...but then again you don't want it to get lost or have some ignorant jerk steal it.
But I would like to see something like that be fore the end of the next decade. Maybe the end of this decade if feasable. Two and a half years is a long way to go and a lot of time to learn things.
Labels: blu-ray, bluetooth, diy, environment, freetoair, infrared, linux, radio, tech
posted by Bushido Hacks 6/15/2008 09:02:00 PM (0) comments top
