Open-Source vs. Turnkey House Analogy

The other day in a roundtable discussion at Cyberpipe, a prominent hackspace in Ljubljana, I heard this interesting analogy on why companies should be mindful of what IT architecture they vest themselves in.

Consider this: You order a new house for your family for the next generation to live in. As you are a shoes salesman by profession and don't know a thing about construction, you don't want the building process to take any of your effort (save for the expressed preference of where the fireplace should lie). You let the house be built by builders. You want a turnkey solution.

When the building is finished and you are ready to take over possession of your new acquisition, do you wish to get handed-over the keys to the house?

Or do you wish to get handed-over the keys to the house, along with all construction plans?

In the first case, you should know that after 5, 10, 20 years, without plans, even the most professional servicer will tear half of your wall down to accommodate you in extending, fixing, or updating your infrastructure.

Contemplating this, remember that open-source comes with open plans. It's an analogy.

Recipe: Ginger chews, candied ginger, syrup, and tea

The other day, a friendly servant in Ljubljana's only falafel outlet gave me a ginger bonbon. I immediately fell in love with the candy that with its 7% ginger content striked me surprisingly hard with its depth. I loved it! Decided that I need more.

Around our parts, an eight-pack normally costs just under two standard units of money (which is not a lot, considering how good the candy is), but I decided to make my own even better.

I found the following two recipes on which I'm basing this report:

• one for candied ginger (with ginger syrup as a byproduct), 
• and this original homemade ginger chews recipe (produces nearly exact candy as the one on the picture above).

The recipe I am hereby proposing very efficiently produces, from 1 kg of fresh ginger root:

1. 1 kg of candied crystallized ginger, 
2. 1 kg arbitrarily-soft chewy ginger bonbons, 
3. 2 liters of ginger syrup, and last but not least, 
4. 50g of dried ginger pulp for tea.

On why having your OS 32-bit is better for desktop use

One should always care to install 32-bit OS only, unless the machine is intended for encoding/rendering work as part of a farm. Otherwise, you are just throwing half of your RAM out of the window.

Why is this so?

Assuming you are using a proper OS (a *nix like GNU/Linux) that doesn't artificially limit the amount of available system memory (Windows), you can let the OS use PAE, which is supported by all modern CPUs since at least Pentium II. That way you can have up to 64GB of RAM on any 32-bit system. Enough for today, tomorrow, and whole of next year.

Clubbing DJs, Do Lower Your Bass!

So I was in a club the other night, and I asked the technician about the equalizer on his sound board.
"These three knobs here. Low, mid, and high tones."
That's it? I would assume, a board with so many knobs, sliders and buttons surely has a prominent 10-level equalizer.
"Why? There's no need. The music has already been remastered when recorded." The idea that he should tweak the sound further seemed preposterous to him, and my question echoed dumb and amateur.

Let me tell you, guy, that the process of remastering includes "equalization" of frequency levels only for the benefit of perceived improved sound, subject to the acoustic properties of the anticipated playback medium and environment.